Optical forces near a nanoantenna

Abstract

The Maxwell stress tensor method is used to calculate the optical forces acting upon a glass nanosphere in the proximity of optically excited gold nanoantenna structures. The dependence of optical forces over a full range of excitation angles is explored: the total internal reflection excitation does not bring any particular advantage to trapping efficiency when compared to the normal incidence excitation. Our calculations show multiple trapping sites with similar trapping properties for the normal and the total internal reflection cases, respectively; furthermore, the convective heating probably dominates over any optical forces in such systems.