J. of Electromagn. Waves and Appl., Vol. 20, No.

6, 827839, 2006
LORENTZ FORCE ON DIELECTRIC AND MAGNETIC
PARTICLES
B. A. Kemp, T. M. Grzegorczyk, and J. A. Kong
Research Laboratory of Electronics
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
77 Massachusetts Ave., 26-305, MA 02139, USA
AbstractThe well-known momentum conservation theorem is
derived specically for time-harmonic elds and is applied to calculate
the radiation pressure on 2-D particles modeled as innite dielectric
and magnetic cylinders. The force calculation results from the
divergence of the Maxwell stress tensor and is compared favorably
via examples with the direct application of Lorentz force to bound
currents and charges. The application of the momentum conservation
theorem is shown to have the advantage of less computation, reducing
the surface integration of the Lorentz force density to a line integral
of the Maxwell stress tensor. The Lorentz force is applied to compute
the force density throughout the particles, which demonstrates regions
of compression and tension within the medium. Further comparison
of the two force calculation methods is provided by the calculation
of radiation pressure on a magnetic particle, which has not been
previously published. The elds are found by application of the Mie
theory along with the Foldy-Lax equations, which model interactions
of multiple particles.
1. INTRODUCTION
The rst observation of optical momentum transfer to small particles
in 1970 [1] prompted further experimental demonstrations of radiation
pressure such as optical levitation [2], radiation pressure on a liquid
surface [3], and the single-beam optical trap [4], to name a few.
Subsequently, theoretical models have been developed to describe the
experimental results and predict new phenomena, for example [59].
However, the theory of radiation pressure is not new. In fact, the
transfer of optical momentum to media was known by Poynting [10]
from the application of the electromagnetic wave theory of light. Still,
828 Kemp, Grzegorczyk, and Kong
ongoing work seeks to model the distribution of force on media by
electromagnetic waves [1114].
The divergence of the Maxwell stress tensor [15] provides an
established method for calculating the radiation pressure on a dielectric
surface via the application of the momentum conservation theorem [16].
An alternate method for the calculation of radiation pressure on
material media by the direct application of the Lorentz law has been
recently reported [12]. The method allows for the computation of
force density at any point inside a dielectric [13] by the application
of the Lorentz force to bound currents distributed throughout the
medium and bound charges at the material surface, and the method
has been extended to include contributions from magnetic media [14].
A comprehensive comparison of the two methods applied to particles
has not been previously published, and, consequently, there exists some
doubt in regard to the applicability of one method or the other.
In the present paper, we compare the force exerted on 2-D
dielectric cylinders as calculated from the divergence of the Maxwell
stress tensor and the distributed Lorentz force. First, the total
time average force as given by the divergence of the Maxwell stress
tensor [16] is derived from the Lorentz law and the Maxwell equations
for time harmonic elds. We demonstrate the numerical eciency of
the stress tensor method by computing the force on a 2-D dielectric
particle represented by an innite cylinder submitted to multiple
plane waves. Second, we give the formulation for the distributed
Lorentz force as applied to dielectric and magnetic media [1214]. The
numerical integration of the distributed Lorentz force over the 2-D
particle cross-section area demonstrates equivalent results, although
the convergence is shown to be much slower than the stress tensor line
integration. Third, both the Maxwell stress tensor and the distributed
Lorentz force methods are applied to two closely spaced particles in the
three plane wave interference pattern, the former method exhibiting
robustness with respect to choice of integration path and the latter
method providing a 2-D map of the Lorentz force density distribution
within the particles. Finally, the rst theoretical demonstration of the
Lorentz force applied to bound magnetic charges and currents in a 2-D
particle is presented.
2. MAXWELL STRESS TENSOR
The momentum conservation theorem [16] relates the total force on
a material object in terms of the momentum of the incident and
scattered elds at all times. It is derived from the Lorentz force law
and the Maxwell equations. In the case of time-harmonic elds, the
Lorentz force on dielectric and magnetic particles 829
time-average force on a material body can be calculated from a single
divergence integral. The proof of this fact is shown by derivation of
the momentum conservation theorem with the only assumption that
all elds have e
it
dependence.
The Lorentz force provides the fundamental relationship between
electromagnetic elds and the mechanical force on charges and
currents [16]. The time average Lorentz force is given in terms of
the electric eld strength

E and magnetic ux density

B by

f =
1
2
Re
_

+

J

B

_
, (1)
where and

J represent the electric charge and current, respectively,
Re{} represents the real part of a complex quantity, and (

) denotes
the complex conjugate. The Maxwell Equations
=

D

J =

H +i

D
(2)
relate the sources and

J to the electric ux density

D and magnetic
eld strength

H. Substitution yields

f =
1
2
Re
_
(

D)

E

+ (

H)

B

D (i

B)

_
. (3)
After applying the remaining two Maxwell equations
0 =

B
i

B =

E,
(4)
the force can by expressed as

f =
1
2
Re
_
(

D)

E

+(

E

)

D+(

B

)

H+(

H)

B

_
. (5)
The momentum conservation theorem for time harmonic elds is
reduced to

f =
1
2
Re
_

T( r)
_
, (6)
where

f is the time average force density in N/m
3
, and the Maxwell
stress tensor is [16]

T( r) =
1
2
_

D

E

+

B

H
_

I

D

E

H. (7)
In (7),

D

E

and

B

H are dyadic products and

I is the (33) identity

matrix. By integration over a volume V enclosed by a surface S and
830 Kemp, Grzegorczyk, and Kong
application of the divergence theorem, the total force

F on the material
enclosed by S is given by

F =
1
2
Re
_
_
S
dS
_
n

T( r)
_
_
, (8)
where n is the outward normal to the surface S. When applying (8)
to calculate the force on a material object, the stress tensor in (7) is
integrated over a surface chosen to completely enclose the object.
We consider the two-dimensional (2-D) problem of a circular
cylinder incident by three TE plane waves. The incident electric eld
pattern |

E| shown in Fig. 1 is due to three plane waves with free

space wavelength
0
= 532 [nm] incident in the (xy) plane at angles
= {/2, 7/6, 11/6} [rad] with the electric eld polarized in the
z-direction. The polystyrene cylinder (
p
= 2.56
0
) has a radius of
a = 0.3
0
and is centered at (x
0
, y
0
) = (0, 100) [nm] in a background of
water (
b
= 1.69
0
). The total eld is obtained as the superposition of
incident and scattered elds, the latter is calculated from application
of the Mie theory [8, 9].
Figure 1. Incident electric eld magnitude [V/m] due to three
plane waves of free space wavelength
0
= 532 nm propagating at
angles {/2, 7/6, 11/6} rad. The overlayed 2D particle is a cylinder
(
p
= 2.56
0
) of radius a = 0.3
0
and innite length in z with
center position (x
0
, y
0
) = (0, 100) [nm]. The background medium is
characterized by
b
= 1.69
0
.
Lorentz force on dielectric and magnetic particles 831
To calculate the total force on the cylinder shown in Fig. 1, the
Maxwell stress tensor is applied to the total eld. For the 2-D problem,
the divergence of the stress tensor is computed by a line integral, which
we evaluate by simple numerical integration. The path chosen is a
circle of radius R concentric with the particle and the integration steps
(R) are assumed constant. The numerical integration is computed
by

F =
1
2
Re
__
2
0
n

T(R, )Rd
_
R
N

n=1
1
2
Re
_
n

T(R, [n])
_
,
(9)
where N represents the total number of integration points and the
values of [n] result from the discretization of [0, 2]. Figure 2
shows the force versus the number of integration points for an
integration radius of R = 1.01a. The results show that the integration
converges rapidly. Because the force is calculated by a divergence
integral, the result does not depend on the value of R, provided enough
integration points are chosen. To conrm this, the force was calculated
0 20 40 60 80 100
-2
0
2
4
x 10
-18
p
b
a
R
y
x
Number of Integration Points
F
y
[
N
]

Figure 2. y-directed force F

y
versus the number of integration points
used in the application of the Maxwell stress tensor in Eq. (9). The
integration path, shown by the inset diagram, is a circle of radius of
R = 1.01a concentric with the cylinder of radius a = 0.3
0
. The
conguration is the same as shown in Fig. 1.
832 Kemp, Grzegorczyk, and Kong
for various choices of integration radius yielding zero for all R < a and

F = y2.1190 10
18
[N/m] for all R > a, which is in agreement with
the value reported by [14].
3. LORENTZ FORCE ON BOUND CURRENTS AND
CHARGES
The Lorentz force can be applied directly to bound currents and
charges in a lossless medium [14]. The bulk force density in [N/m
3
] is
computed throughout the medium by

f
bulk
=
1
2
Re{i

P
e


B

i

P
m


D

}, (10)
where the electric polarization

P
e
= (
p

b
)

E and the
magnetic polarization

P
m
= (
p

b
)

H are given in terms of
the background constitutive parameters (
b
,
b
) and the particle
constitutive parameters (
p
,
p
). The surface force density in [N/m
2
]
is given by

f
surf
=
1
2
Re{
e

E

avg
+
m

H

avg
}, (11)
where the bound electric surface charge density is
e
= n (

E
1

E
0
)
b
[12], the bound magnetic surface charge density is
m
= n
(

H
1

H
0
)
b
[14], and the unit vector n is an outward pointing normal
to the surface. The elds (

E
0
,

H
0
) and (

E
1
,

H
1
) are the total elds just
inside the particle and outside the particle, respectively, and the elds
in (11) are given by

E
avg
= (

E
1
+

E
0
)/2 and

H
avg
= (

H
1
+

H
0
)/2.
The distributed Lorentz force is applied to the problem of Fig. 1.
Because TE polarized waves are incident upon a dielectric particle,
the bound charges at the surface are zero and the total force

F is
obtained by integrating the bulk Lorentz force density

f
bulk
over the
cross section of the cylinder. The numerical integration is performed
by summing the contribution from M discrete area elements. The area
elements A = xy are taken to be identical so that the numerical
integration is

F =
__
S
dA
1
2
Re{

f
bulk
} A
M

m=1
1
2
Re{i

P
e
[m]
0

H

[m]}, (12)
where the dielectric polarization

P
e
[m] and magnetic eld

H[m] are
evaluated at each point indexed by m in the cross section of the
cylinder. The y-directed force is plotted in Fig. 3 versus the number
of integration points. The integral converges much slower than the
Lorentz force on dielectric and magnetic particles 833
500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 3500 4000
1.9
2
2.1
2.2
2.3
2.4
x 10
-18
Number of Integration Points
F
y
[
N
]
Figure 3. y-directed force F
y
versus the number of integration points
for the direct application of the Lorentz force of (12). The conguration
is the same as shown in Fig. 1. The dashed line is the force computed
from the stress tensor of (9) with 100 numerical integration points on
a concentric circle of radius R = 1.01a.
line integral applied to the stress tensor, however the resulting force is

F = y2.1191 10
18
[N/m], thus matching the result from the Maxwell
stress tensor.
4. FORCE ON MULTIPLE DIELECTRIC PARTICLES
The Mie theory and the Foldy-Lax multiple scattering equations are
applied to calculate the force on multiple particles incident by a
known electromagnetic eld [8, 9]. We consider the same incident
eld shown in Fig. 1 with two identical dielectric particles centered at
(x, y) = (0, 100) [nm] and (x, y) = (0, 300) [nm] as shown in Fig. 4. As
before, the 2-D polystyrene particles are modeled as innite dielectric
cylinders (
p
= 2.56
0
) in water (
b
= 1.69
0
) with radius a = 0.3
0
.
The Maxwell stress tensor is applied to calculate the force on each
particle by taking an integration path that just encloses each particle
as shown in Fig. 4. The force for the particle at (x, y) = (0, 100) [nm]
is

F = y1.6517 10
18
[N/m], and the force on the particle at
834 Kemp, Grzegorczyk, and Kong
p
p
b
y
x

Figure 4. Two particles centered at (x, y) = (100, 0), (300, 0) [nm]

are subject to the incident eld pattern of Fig. 1. The integration
paths for the Maxwell stress tensor applied to the two particles are
shown by the dotted lines. The sum of the forces on the two individual
particles obtained by the smaller two integration circles is equal to the
force obtained by integrating over the large circular integration path.
(x, y) = (0, 300) [nm] is

F = y1.4490 10
18
[N/m]. By taking
the integration path surrounding both particles, the total force on
the system composed of both particles is

F = y2.0269 10
19
[N/m],
which agrees with the sum of the individual forces. This example
demonstrates that the divergence of the stress tensor gives the total
force on all currents and charges enclosed by the integration path and
that the integration path needs not be concentric with the material
bodies.
For comparison with the stress tensor method, the Lorentz force is
applied to bound electric currents in both particles. The distribution
of force densities are shown in Fig. 5. Although the x-directed force
integrates to zero for both particles due to symmetry, it can be seen
that the local force densities vary throughout the particle. These
forces act in compression or tension in the various regions of the
particle. The total force on each particle is found by integration
of the local force densities throughout the particles. The force for
the particle at (x, y) = (0, 100) [nm] is

F = y1.6500 10
18
[N/m]
using 17, 534 integration points, and the total force on the particle
at (x, y) = (0, 300) [nm] is

F = y1.4523 10
18
[N/m] using 17, 530
integration points, which is agreement with the results of the Maxwell
stress tensor divergence.
Lorentz force on dielectric and magnetic particles 835
Figure 5. Lorentz force density [10
4
N/m
3
] for two particles
positioned at (x, y) = (100, 0), (300, 0) [nm] illuminated by the three
plane waves of free space wavelength
0
= 532 nm as shown in Fig. 1.
The top plots are (a) y-directed force f
y
and (b) x-directed force
f
x
for the particle at (x, y) = (0, 100) [nm]. The bottom plots are
(c) y-directed force f
y
and (d) x-directed force f
x
for the particle
at (x, y) = (0, 300) [nm]. The total Lorentz force on the particles
is obtained by summation of the force densities on the particle at
(x, y) = (0, 100) [nm] (

F = y1.6500 10
18
[N/m]) and the particle
at (x, y) = (0, 300) [nm] (

F = y1.4523 10
18
[N/m]). For both
particles, the x-directed force is zero due to symmetry.
5. RADIATION PRESSURE ON A MAGNETIC
PARTICLE
The Lorentz force has been previously applied to bound magnetic
charges and currents to calculate the radiation pressure on a magnetic
slab [14]. However, the method has not been used to determine the
force on magnetic particles. In this section, we calculate the radiation
pressure on a 2-D magnetic particle represented by an innite cylinder
incident by a single TE plane wave.
836 Kemp, Grzegorczyk, and Kong
The incident plane wave

E
i
= zE
i
e
ik
0
x
propagates in free space
(
0
,
0
) with a wavelength
0
= 2/k
0
= 640 [nm]. The 2-D magnetic
particles (
0
, 3
0
) are innite in the z-direction, with radius a. The
Maxwell stress tensor and the distributed Lorentz force methods are
applied to calculate the total force on the particles. The direct
application of the Lorentz force requires the model of bound magnetic
currents

M
b
= i

P
m
in (10) and bound magnetic surface charges
m
in (11). Agreement between the two methods is shown in Fig. 6 as
a function of particle radius. The oscillations in force are a result of
internal resonances, which is also evident for the case of dielectric and
magnetic slabs incident by plane waves [14].
0 200 400 600 800 1000
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
x 10
-17
a [nm]
F
x
[
N
/
m
]
Lorentz
Tensor
Figure 6. Radiation pressure on a magnetic cylinder (
p
= 3
0
,
p
=

0
) versus the radius a. The TE plane wave propagates in the x-
direction in free space (
b
=
0
,
b
=
0
), and the wavelength is
640 [nm]. The force is calculated by the divergence of the stress tensor
(line) and the Lorentz force on bound currents and charges (markers).
There are noticeable dierences between the results of the two
methods for larger values of a as shown in Fig. 6. This is due to
increased spacial variations in force distribution for particles on the
order of a wavelength or larger. The slow convergence of the total
Lorentz force has been observed for small dielectric particles as shown
in Fig. 3 and becomes a major obstacle for obtaining many digits of
accuracy from the Lorentz force for large particles. To illustrate this
point, we compare the force calculated for the magnetic particle with
radius a = 1000 nm with various number of integration points N in
Lorentz force on dielectric and magnetic particles 837
Table 1. Radiation pressure on a magnetic particle (a = 1000 [nm]).
Number of Integration Points Total Lorentz Force F
x
25, 952 4.8177 10
18
[N/m]
103, 336 4.9175 10
18
[N/m]
282, 868 4.9498 10
18
[N/m]
Table 1. For each calculation, 200 points are used for the calculation of
force on bound surface charges, which was determined to be enough for
the number of signicant digits reported. The force obtained from the
stress tensor approach is 5.3524 10
18
[N/m], which converges within
100 points. It is clear that for this particular case, the total Lorentz
force converges so slowly that it could hinder studies involving many
variables or multiple particles [8, 9]. For many applications, however,
the Lorentz force is useful for getting a picture of force distribution
inside the particle, while the divergence of the stress tensor is much
more ecient for obtaining the total force on the particle.
6. CONCLUSIONS
We have calculated the radiation pressure on 2-D particles from both
the divergence of the Maxwell stress tensor and the direct application
of the Lorentz force to bound currents and charges. The Maxwell stress
tensor was derived for time harmonic elds from the Lorentz force and
the Maxwell equations. The Lorentz force is applied directly to bound
currents and charges used to model dielectric and magnetic materials.
The advantage of the stress tensor approach for force calculation on
2-D particles, is that it reduces a combination of surface integral
over the bulk force density

f
bulk
in (10) and a line integral over the
surface force density

f
surf
in (11) to the line integral (8) over the
Maxwell stress tensor in (7). This reduction in computation has been
demonstrated by example. The Lorentz force, however, can give the
force distribution throughout the particle. Such distributions can be
important when optical forces are applied to sensitive objects such as
in biological applications. For large particles, the total force may be
dicult to obtain accurately from the Lorentz force density, which
we illustrated by calculating the radiation pressure on a magnetic
particle. In applications of optical binding [8] such as building optical
matter [17], the Lorentz force can be applied to map force distributions
within particles, while the stress tensor approach can be used to nd
the total force on the particle lattice.
838 Kemp, Grzegorczyk, and Kong
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This work is sponsored by the Department of the Air Force under
Air Force Contract FA8721-05-C-0002. Opinions, interpretations,
conclusions and recommendations are those of the author and are not
necessarily endorsed by the United States Government.
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