Prediction of metallic nano-optical trapping forces by finite element-boundary integral method.

The hybrid of finite element and boundary integral (FE-BI) method is employed to predict nano-optical trapping forces of arbitrarily shaped metallic nanostructures. A preconditioning strategy is proposed to improve the convergence of the iterative solution. Skeletonization is employed to speed up the design and optimization where iteration has to be repeated for each beam configuration. The radiation pressure force (RPF) is computed by vector flux of the Maxwell's stress tensor. Numerical simulations are performed to validate the developed method in analyzing the plasmonic effects as well as the optical trapping forces. It is shown that the proposed method is capable of predicting the trapping forces of complex metallic nanostructures accurately and efficiently.