Issue |
Europhys. Lett.
Volume 43, Number 1, July I 1998
|
|
---|---|---|
Page(s) | 41 - 46 | |
Section | Condensed matter: structure, thermal and mechanical properties | |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1209/epl/i1998-00316-7 | |
Published online | 01 September 2002 |
AFM observation of force on a dielectric sphere in the evanescent field of totally reflected light
1
Jožef Stefan Institute - Jamova 39, Ljubljana, Slovenia
2
Department of Physics, University of Ljubljana - Jadranska 19, Ljubljana, Slovenia
Received:
9
February
1998
Accepted:
15
May
1998
We present the first direct measurement of the radiation pressure force acting on a sphere in
the evanescent field of a totally reflected light beam using the atomic force microscope (AFM).
A dielectric sphere was attached to the AFM cantilever and placed into the evanescent light
field of the Ar-laser beam illuminating a sapphire prism surface at an angle larger than the
critical. A repulsive force due to the evanescent field was observed. The force decreases
exponentially with the characteristic length of nm as the distance between the
sphere and the total reflection surface increases. The measured magnitude of the force close to
the surface is
N. Both the magnitude and the decay length are in
good agreement with the calculated values.
PACS: 61.16.Ch – Scanning probe microscopy: scanning tunneling, atomic force, scanning optical, magnetic force, etc / 42.25.Bs – Wave propagation, transmission and absorption / 42.25.Gy – Edge and boundary effects; reflection and refraction
© EDP Sciences, 1998
Current usage metrics show cumulative count of Article Views (full-text article views including HTML views, PDF and ePub downloads, according to the available data) and Abstracts Views on Vision4Press platform.
Data correspond to usage on the plateform after 2015. The current usage metrics is available 48-96 hours after online publication and is updated daily on week days.
Initial download of the metrics may take a while.