title: Simple algorithm for partial wave expansion of plasmonic and evanescent fields.
abstract: Based on an expansion formula for unit dyadic in terms of the vector spherical wave functions, we derive explicit partial wave coefficients for a complex wave vector field that is characterized by a single wave vector with three Cartesian components being arbitrarily constant complex except subject to lossless background constraint and thus includes evanescent waves and simple plasmonic fields as its two special cases. A recurrence method is then proposed to evaluate the partial wave expansion coefficients numerically up to arbitrary order of expansion, offering an efficient tool for the scattering of generic electromagnetic fields that can be modelled by a superposition of the complex wave vector fields such as the evanescent and plasmonic waves. Our approach is validated by analytically working out the integration in the conventional, more cumbersome, projection approach. Comparison of optical forces on a particle in evanescent and plasmonic fields with previous results shows perfect agreement, thereby further corroborating our approach. As examples of its application, we calculate optical force and torque exerting on particles residing in a plasmonic field, with large particle size where the conventional projection method based on the direct numerical integration is unadapted due to the difficulty in convergence. It is found that the direction of optical torque stays parallel to the direction of spin of optical field for some field polarizations and changes for some other polarizations, as the particle radius R varies.
authors.forename: Xinning
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Yu
authors.forename: Qian
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Ye
authors.forename: Huajin
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Shiyang
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Zhifang
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Lin