Resonant bending of silicon nanowires by incident light

Coupling of two dielectric wires with a rectangular cross section gives rise to bonding and anti-bonding resonances. The latter is featured by extremal narrowing of the resonant width for variation of the aspect ratio of the cross section and distance between wires. A plane wave resonant to this anti-bonding resonance gives rise to unprecedent enhancement of the optical forces up to several nano Newtons per micrometer length of the wires. The forces oscillate with the angle of incidence of the plane wave but always try to repel the wires. If the wires are fixed at the ends, the light power 1.5mW/µm² bends wires with length 50 µm by order 100 nm.