Abstract

It has been reported that microparticles could be driven and aligned by an evanescent field induced at solid-liquid interfaces, based on radiation pressure caused by photon momentum transfer from the localized optical field to the particles.¹ For its applications to micromanipulation and micropatterning of particles, it is indispensable to quantitatively measure the strength and potential energy of the evanescent-field-induced radiation pressure. In this paper, we describe the direct observation of three-dimensional interaction potential between a single particle and the localized optical field.

© 1998 Optical Society of America