Optical Forces in Silicon Nanophotonics and Optomechanical Systems: Science and Applications

Table 1

Summary of the optical forces in silicon nanophotonics and optomechanics.


Mechanism		Material	Optical force/stiffness	Trapping quantity (>50)	Ref

Light particle	Waveguide	Polystyrene, 200 nm	~55 pN/W	Yes	[39]
	Slot waveguide	DNA and polystyrene, 100 nm	~25 pN/W	No	[20]
	Ring resonator	Polystyrene, 1.1 μm	~0.15 nN/W	No	[18]
	Photonic crystal (defect mode)	Polystyrene, 100 nm	~700 pN/W	Yes	[40]
	Photonic crystal (guided mode)	Polystyrene, 520 nm	~ 5 nN/W	Yes	[41]
	Silicon substrate (lateral force)	Gold, 40 nm	~ 0.4 pN/(mW μm^-2)	—	[24]

Light nanostructure	Nanowaveguide and substrate	Silicon, 500 nm (width)	~ 0.5 pN/(μm mW)	—	[28]
	Ring resonator and substrate	Silicon, 450 nm (width)	~ 50 nN/(μm mW)	—	[42]
	Parallel ring resonators	Silicon nitride, 2.5 μm (width)	~ 20 nN/(μm mW)	—	[43]
	Dual nanowaveguide (Casimir force)	Silicon, 500 nm (width)	~ 1 pN/(μm mW)	—	[38]