Attractive and repulsive light forces

[Moriarty]

ScienceDaily (July 13, 2009) — A team of Yale University researchers has discovered a "repulsive" light force that can be used to control components on silicon microchips, meaning future nanodevices could be controlled by light rather than electricity.

Link

 

ScienceDaily (July 27, 2009) — The University of Ghent (UGent) and the nanoelectronics research center IMEC demonstrated repulsive and attractive nanophotonic forces, depending on the spatial distribution of the light used. These fundamental research results might have major consequences for telecommunication and optical signal processing.

Link

 

This research appears to be application-driven, but I'm personally more interested in the fact that the phenomenon occurs at all and only when the light is confined (compressed? excited?) within a nano scale. Electron degeneracy comes to mind for some reason, although unrelated.

 

I'd appreciate someone pointing me to some resources so I might better understand how this works. Specifically, I wasn't aware light could have attractive or repulsive properties.

[Klaynos]

This is actually quite closely related to the work that happens in the group I belong too. If I get a chance tomorrow I'll have a read of the papers...

[swansont]

I have only read the press-release stories, which are maddeningly short on detail, so I can't tell what's going on. There is a dipole force that can be exploited — the electric field present in the light beam can induce a dipole in atoms and either repel or attract them. I don't know if that's what's going on here, but it would be a possibility.

[J.C.MacSwell]

Isn't light a repulsive force generally since it carries momentum?

 

Sounds like they found an additional repulsive force to complement an attractive force they found previously.

Edited July 28, 2009 by J.C.MacSwell

[Bishadi]

a real easy item for each to observe is the 'right hand rule' of electricity

 

 

there is no electric potential without its magetic field at "perpendicular planes"

 

 

ie.... most all electicity is from what; electric and magnetic fields in perpendicular planes (generation of; at the power plant)

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Merged post follows:

Consecutive posts merged

Isn't light a repulsive force generally since it carries momentum?

when upon mass, sure it can be

 

 

Sounds like they found an additional repulsive force to complement an attractive force they found previously.

 

same forces, just 'finally' being causal

Edited August 4, 2009 by Bishadi
Consecutive posts merged.