Manipulation of nanoparticles with tailored optical focal field

Abstract

Optical trapping and manipulation using focused laser beams has emerged as a powerful tool in the biological and physical sciences. However, scaling this technique to nanoparticles remains challenging. In this work, we propose a novel strategy to optically trap nanoparticles even under the most challenging situation using engineered optical field. The distribution of the optical forces can be tailored through optimizing the spatial distribution of a vectorial optical illumination to favor the stable trapping of a variety of nanoparticles. It is shown that the proposed optical tweezers has the ability of supporting stable three-dimensional trapping for nanoparticles while avoiding trap destabilization due to optical overheating. Besides, the interaction between the angular momentum of the light and the nanoparticle is also explored to control the movement behavior of the nanoparticle. The technique presented in this work offers a versatile solution for trapping nanoparticles and may open up new avenues for optical manipulation.