Optically bound microscopic particles in one dimension

Counterpropagating light fields have the ability to create self-organized one-dimensional optically bound arrays of microscopic particles, where the light fields adapt to the particle locations and vice versa. We develop a theoretical model to describe this situation and show good agreement with recent experimental data [Phys. Rev. Lett. 89, 128301 (2002)] for two and three particles, if the scattering force is assumed to dominate the axial trapping of the particles. The extension of these ideas to two- and three-dimensional optically bound states is also discussed.