Sustained Orbital Motion Driven by Circularly Polarized Light in Nanoscale Stator-Rotor Architectures
Abstract
Light-induced forces and torques offer a versatile strategy for remotely actuating microscopic objects, enabling breakthroughs including optical trapping and light-driven nanomachines. Extending such optical actuation to sustained cyclic motion, however, requires fundamentally distinct designs and, in particular, forces capable of delivering nonzero mechanical work over repeated cycles. Here, we demonstrate via simulations a nanoscale stator-rotor architecture, which achieves persistent orbital motion of a spherical rotor under circularly polarized plane-wave illumination. An off-center rotor displacement defines a stator-rotor structural polarity. Optical helicity coupled to this polarity generates a tangential force perpendicular to the instantaneous stator-rotor direction; as the rotor moves around the stator, the force direction rotates with it. Electrodynamic symmetry analysis identifies this response as arising from antisymmetric, nonconservative forces that produce nonzero closed-cycle work, whereas linear polarization yields symmetric, conservative responses with zero closed-cycle work. Material screening and Bayesian optimization identify an Ag-nanoshell design region, while Pareto analysis balances tangential actuation and radial confinement. A balanced candidate is predicted to lower the maximum steady-state temperature rise from 56.2 to 20.9 K relative to Au at the same light intensity. Brownian-dynamics simulations further show confined, helicity-defined orbital motion, with all 32 trajectories retaining the same circulation direction. These results establish a symmetry-guided route toward sustained cyclic optical actuation at the nanoscale.
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BibTeX
@misc{du2026sustained,
title = {{Sustained Orbital Motion Driven by Circularly Polarized Light in Nanoscale Stator-Rotor Architectures}},
author = {Shiye Du and Juanshu Wu and Xin Chen and Mouhong Lin and Hongyu Chen},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.24029},
eprint = {2609.24029},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.24029},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Sustained Orbital Motion Driven by Circularly Polarized Light in Nanoscale Stator-Rotor Architectures
AU - Shiye Du
AU - Juanshu Wu
AU - Xin Chen
AU - Mouhong Lin
AU - Hongyu Chen
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/21
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.24029
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.24029
AB - Light-induced forces and torques offer a versatile strategy for remotely actuating microscopic objects, enabling breakthroughs including optical trapping and light-driven nanomachines. Extending such optical actuation to sustained cyclic motion, however, requires fundamentally distinct designs and, in particular, forces capable of delivering nonzero mechanical work over repeated cycles. Here, we demonstrate via simulations a nanoscale stator-rotor architecture, which achieves persistent orbital motion of a spherical rotor under circularly polarized plane-wave illumination. An off-center rotor displacement defines a stator-rotor structural polarity. Optical helicity coupled to this polarity generates a tangential force perpendicular to the instantaneous stator-rotor direction; as the rotor moves around the stator, the force direction rotates with it. Electrodynamic symmetry analysis identifies this response as arising from antisymmetric, nonconservative forces that produce nonzero closed-cycle work, whereas linear polarization yields symmetric, conservative responses with zero closed-cycle work. Material screening and Bayesian optimization identify an Ag-nanoshell design region, while Pareto analysis balances tangential actuation and radial confinement. A balanced candidate is predicted to lower the maximum steady-state temperature rise from 56.2 to 20.9 K relative to Au at the same light intensity. Brownian-dynamics simulations further show confined, helicity-defined orbital motion, with all 32 trajectories retaining the same circulation direction. These results establish a symmetry-guided route toward sustained cyclic optical actuation at the nanoscale.
ER -