Nonlinear optical trap: dielectrics, metals, and beyond

Recent theoretical and experimental results have shown how the trapping force/potential can be dramatically modulated due to optical and thermal nonlinearity. Compared with dielectrics, metals show even more interesting behavior (for example, trap-splitting, enhanced forward scattering, etc.) owing to higher-order optical nonlinearities. Hence, we present a comparison study for dielectric and metallic nanoparticles using generalized Lorenz-Mie theory.