Universal Spin-Momentum Locked Optical Forces

TL;DR

This paper explores how spin-momentum locking in evanescent waves universally influences optical forces, explaining recent phenomena and proposing experiments to distinguish effects from orbital angular momentum.

Contribution

It provides a unified theoretical framework linking spin-momentum locking to optical forces and introduces experimental methods to observe these effects.

Findings

Spin-momentum locking determines the direction of energy flow, decay, and spin in evanescent waves.

Transverse spin causes lateral optical forces on particles, both chiral and achiral.

Proposes an experiment to detect lateral forces from transverse spin in optical fibers.

Abstract

Evanescent electromagnetic waves possess spin-momentum locking, where the direction of propagation (momentum) is locked to the inherent polarization of the wave (transverse spin). We study the optical forces arising from this universal phenomenon and show that the fundamental origin of recently reported non-trivial optical chiral forces is spin-momentum locking. For evanescent waves, we show that the direction of energy flow, direction of decay, and direction of spin follow a right hand rule for three different cases of total internal reflection, surface plasmon polaritons, and $HE_{11}$ mode of an optical fiber. Furthermore, we explain how the recently reported phenomena of lateral optical force on chiral and achiral particles is caused by the transverse spin of the evanescent field and the spin-momentum locking phenomenon. Finally, we propose an experiment to identify the unique lateral forces arising from the transverse spin in the optical fiber and point to fundamental differences of the spin density from the well-known orbital angular momentum of light. Our work presents a unified view on spin-momentum locking and how it affects optical forces on chiral and achiral particles.