Quantum conversion

The electromagnetic momentum transferred transfered to scattering particles is proportional to the intensity of the incident fields, however, the momentum of single photons ($\hbar k$) does not naturally appear in these classical expressions. Here, we discuss an alternative to Maxwell's stress tensor that renders the classical electromagnetic field momentum compatible to the quantum mechanical one. This is achieved through the introduction of the quantum conversion which allows the transformation, including units, of the classical fields to wave-function equivalent fields.Comment: ICOAM 201

Quantum conversion

ICOAM 2015The electromagnetic momentum transferred transferred to scattering particles is proportional to the intensity of the incident fields, however, the momentum of single photons ℏk does not naturally appear in these classical expressions. Here, we discuss an alternative to Maxwell's stress tensor that renders the classical electromagnetic field momentum compatible to the quantum mechanical one. This is achieved through the introduction of the quantum conversion which allows the transformation, including units, of the classical fields to wave-function equivalent fields.Publisher PD

Optical eigenmode collapse

The optical eigenmode representation of light fields defines a natural orthogonal basis of solutions of Maxwell's equations taking into account the geometry and interactions involved in a problem. Formally, the optical eigenmodes are similar to the wave functions in quantum mechanics. Here, I put forward that, in a linear interaction at the single photon level, the electromagnetic field collapses into an optical eigenmode of the interaction in question. This is to satisfy the principle that no linear optical system can distinguish between pure states and their superposition for single photons. To exemplify this statement, we will consider the case of angular momentum and linear momentum transfer in optical scattering.Publisher PDFNon peer reviewe

Mie scattering eigenmodes for optical trapping

The Mie scattering theory enables the exact determination of the scattered field as a function of the incident field. Here, we use this approach to calculate the Hermitian relationship between the incident field and the optical forces acting on the scattering objects. This Hermitian relationship defines also a set of orthogonal optical eigenmodes which deliver a natural basis to describe momentum transfer in light-matter interactions.Publisher PDFNon peer reviewe

Spin and angular momentum operators and their conservation

Lorentz's reciprocity lemma and Feld-Tai reciprocity theorem show the effect of interchanging the action and reaction in Maxwell's equations. We derive a free-space version of these reciprocity relations which generalizes the conservation of the momentum-energy tensor. This relation corresponds to the interference conservation of electromagnetic waves. We show that for any transformation or symmetry that leaves Maxwell's equations invariant, we can modify the reciprocity relation to introduce a conserving density, optical flux and stress tensor extending Noether's theorem to a different context. We apply this method to transformations that can be expressed as Hermitian operators and more specifically we define the operators associated with the optical energy, spin, linear and angular momentum.Comment: Submitted to Journal of Optics A: Pure and Applied Optic

Selective and optimal illumination of nano-photonic structures using optical eigenmodes

Using optical eigenmodes defined by the interaction between the electromagnetic fields and photonic structures it is possible to determine the optimal illumination of these structures with respect to a specific measurable quantity. One such quantity considered here is the electric field intensity in the hotspot regions of an array of nano-antennas. This paper presents two possible methods, both based on optical eigenmodes, to determine the optimal and most efficient illumination that couples to a single hotspot on top of a single nano-antenna taken from an array of nano-antennas. The two methods are compared in terms of cross-talk and overall coupling efficiency.Comment: Paper presented at the TaCoNa-Photonics meeting October 2011, Bad Honnef, German

Optical eigenmode imaging

We present an indirect imaging method that measures both amplitude and phase information from a transmissive target. Our method is based on an optical eigenmode decomposition of the light intensity and the first-order cross correlation between a target field and these eigenmodes. We demonstrate that such optical eigenmode imaging does not need any a priori knowledge of the imaging system and corresponds to a compressive full-field sampling leading to high image extraction efficiencies. Finally, we discuss the implications with respect to second-order correlation imaging