title: Laser induced surface stress on water droplets.
abstract: Laser induced stress on spherical water droplets is studied. At mechanical equilibrium, the body stress vanishes therefore we consider only the surface stress. The surface stress on sub-wavelength droplets is slightly weaker along the light propagation direction. For larger droplets, due to their light focusing effect, the forward stress is significantly enhanced. For a particle roughly 3 micron in radius, when it is excited at whispering gallery mode with Q ∼ 10⁴ by a 1 Watt Gaussian beam, the stress can be enhanced by two orders of magnitude, and can be comparable with the Laplace pressure.
authors.forename: Neng
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Zhifang
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Lin
authors.forename: Jack
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Ng