Quantum mechanics compatible Maxwell's stress tensor (presentation video)

Abstract

There are many ways to calculate the optical forces acting on scattering particles such as Maxwell’s stress tensor, Lorentz forces, gradient and scattering forces, Lorenz-Mie formalism, T-matrix. All these approaches use the electromagnetic field and define the amount of linear momentum transferred to the scattering particles. The resulting momentum transferred is proportional to the intensity of the incident fields, however, the single photon momentum (hbar k) does not naturally appear in these classical expressions. In this paper, we discuss an alternative Maxwell’s stress tensor based formalism that renders the classical electromagnetic field momentum compatible to the quantum mechanical one.