Light-driven transport of microparticles with phase-gradient metasurfaces

Levitated 2D manipulation on dielectric metasurface by the tuning of polarization states

In this Letter, we have proposed a particle manipulation system based on a polarization-dependent dielectric metasurface (PDM), which enables far-field trapping and 2D arbitrary transporting. Based on flexible phase manipulation, by tuning the size and angle of meta-atoms, polarization-selective focusing in different modules of the metasurface can be realized. Then, when those regional focuses are continuously lighted in a relay way, the trapped particle at the focus could be delivered to the next one. When six different characteristic polarization states are tuned in order, the trapped particle could be transported to any adjacent hot spots so that 2D manipulation can be realized in an extended range. With the consideration of the Brownian motion, our simulation results show that the success rate of the particle transport can reach more than 96.0%, even after 20 periods when excited at the wavelength of 1064 nm with a power density of 0.15 mW/µm2. We believe that our research provides a new and promising method for particle manipulation and furthers on-chip optofluidic applications.