Rotary metaswimmers powered by linearly polarized light

Paper in proceeding, 2023

Metasurfaces offer great possibilities to manipulate the momentum of light. Changes in linear optical momentum can result in forces and torques acting on a movable metaswimmer. Here, we demonstrate that by spatially distributing the changes in the linear momentum of light across the metasurface, these optomechanical effects can be utilized to generate optical torques able to rotate metaswimmers that are tens of micrometers wide in aqueous environments. We delineate the counterintuitive dynamics resulting from physical and hydrodynamic interactions between metaswimmers.