Phase-gradient metalens for optical confinement and transport of microparticles

Paper in proceeding, 2022

Optical tweezers have opened numerous possibilities for contactless trapping and manipulation of microscopic particles for applications in life science and soft matter research and technology. In this work, we demonstrate the optical trapping and propulsion of microparticles in a compact setup facilitated by a dielectric metasurface. We envisage that this metasurface could be integrated with microfluidic chips to form miniaturized devices for sensing, driving and sorting various kinds of microscopic objects.