Dynamic multiple nanoparticle trapping using metamaterial plasmonic tweezers

Optical manipulation has attracted remarkable interest owing to its versatile and non-invasive nature. However, conventional optical trapping remains inefficient for the nanoscopic world. The emergence of plasmonics in recent years has brought a revolutionary change in overcoming limitations due to diffraction and the requirements for high trapping laser powers. Among the near-field optical trapping cavity-based systems, Fano resonant optical tweezers have a robust trapping capability. In this work, we experimentally demonstrate sequential trapping of 20 nm particles through the use of metamaterial plasmonic optical tweezers. We investigate the multiple trapping via trap stiffness measurements for various trapping positions at low and high incident laser intensities. Our configuration could be used as a light-driven nanoscale sorting device under low laser excitation. Our results provide an alternative approach to trap multiple nanoparticles at distinct hotspots, enabling new ways to control mass transport on the nanoscale.