Plasmonic tweezers: For nanoscale optical trapping and beyond

Plasmonic tweezers exploit deep sub-wavelength confinement of light to trap and manipulate small particles with far greater precision. Scientists from China and The Netherlands have now reviewed the principles of its operation, benefits and applications. They document the popular designs that have been used to create tweezers to date, and their applications in the areas of manipulation, sorting, characterization and sensing of objects. They also discuss the opportunities for the tweezers in the future.