APS -2017 Annual Meeting of the APS Mid-Atlantic Section- Event - Practical Tractor Beams and Related Photokinetic Phenomena

摘要

Like any traveling wave, a beam of light exerts a force on anobject that absorbs or scatters its momentum. Starting with Maxwell's pioneering formulation for plane waves, this force generally has been understood to be repulsive. We recentlyhave demonstrated, however, that some specially structuredbeams of light have the remarkable abilityto pull illuminated objects upstream along their entirelength. In this respect, they are practical realizations oftractor beams, which previously had appeared only in science fiction stories. Explaining their operation withthe theory of photokinetic effects leads to other surprises, including a mechanism by which light'sspin angular momentum can exert forces on optically isotropicobjects. Both the theoretical framework and experimentaldemonstrations will be presented.