Giant terahertz pulling force within an evanescent field propelled by wave coupling into radiation and bound modes

Abstract

Manipulation of subwavelength objects by engineering the electromagnetic waves in the environment medium is pivotal for several particle handling techniques. In this letter, we theoretically demonstrate the possibility of engineering a compact and tunable plasmon-based terahertz tweezer using a graphene monolayer that is deposited on a high-index substrate. Under total-internal-reflection illumination, such device is shown to be capable of inducing an enhanced rotating polarizability thus enabling directional near-field coupling into the graphene plasmon mode and radiation modes in the substrate. As a result of the total momentum conservation, the net force exerted on the particle points in a direction opposite to the pushing force of the exciting evanescent field. Our results can contribute to novel realizations of photonic devices based on polarization dependent interactions between nanoparticles and electromagnetic mode fields.