Abstract
It is highly desirable to design optical devices with diverse optomechanical functions. Here, we investigate lateral optical force exerted on subwavelength-diameter (SD) optical fibers harnessed by input light modes with different polarizations. It is interesting to find that input light modes of circular or elliptical polarizations would bring about lateral optical force in new directions, which has not been observed in previous studies. By means of finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) simulations, detailed spatial distributions of the asymmetric transverse force density are revealed, meanwhile dependence of optical force on input light polarizations, fiber diameters, and inclination angles of fiber endfaces are all carefully discussed. It is believed that polarization-sensitive reflection, refraction, and diffraction of optical fields occur at the interface, i.e., fiber oblique endfaces, resulting in asymmetrically distributed optical fields and thereafter non-zero transverse optical force. We believe our new findings could be helpful for constructing future steerable optomechanical devices with more flexibility.
Highlights
It is known that flying photons carry momenta, and exchange of light momenta would give rise to optical force [1]
Much effort has been devoted to the theoretical explanations of lateral deflection of SD optical fibers, while carefully considering many practical factors such as fiber geometries and associated physical effMeiccrtosm[a3ch0i–n3es62]0. 1A9,d10d,ixtionally, it was found that oblique endfaces of optical fibers gave rise to much stTrohnergeefrolraet,eritalwooputilcdalbfeormceosrceoemffpicaireendt wtoitdheflvaetloenpdofapcteicsa[l3f5o].rcTehaecretufoartee,ditdwevouicledsbbeamseodreoenffiScDienfitbteors dwevitehloopbolipqtuiceaelnfodrfcaeceasc.tuated devices based on SD fibers with oblique endfaces
Distributions of Fx, Fy, and Fz all possess strong oscillations in the regions close to the fiber endface, which was attributed to quick radiation of reflected light fields from the oblique endfaces [35]
Summary
It is known that flying photons carry momenta, and exchange of light momenta would give rise to optical force [1]. Solar sail spacecraft usually possess large reflective sails that could capture photons from sunlight and use optical force as propulsion for forward traveling. We investigated the polarization-dependent optical force inside SD fibers with oblique endfaces.
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