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Updated: Jun 18, 2026

Construction and Operation of a Light-driven Gold Nanorod Rotary Motor System
Published on: June 30, 2018
Deterministic ratchet from stationary light fields
I Zapata1, S Albaladejo, J M R Parrondo
1Departamento Física de Materiales, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, E-28040 Madrid, Spain.
Abstract:
Ratchets are dynamic systems where particle transport is induced by zero-average forces due to the interplay between nonlinearity and asymmetry. Generally, they rely on the effect of a strong external driving. We show that stationary optical lattices can be designed to generate particle flow in one direction while requiring neither noise nor driving. Such optical fields must be arranged to yield a combination of conservative (dipole) and nonconservative (radiation pressure) forces. Under strong friction all paths converge to a discrete set of limit periodic trajectories flowing in the same direction.
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