Controlling the movement of nanoparticles in a dielectric metasurface by using rotatable linearly polarized light

Abstract

We propose a nanoparticle transportation method in a dielectric metasurface for nanoparticles of particular sizes using rotatable linearly polarized light. The dielectric metasurface utilizes plum-blossom structures to realize hot spot position switching by rotating the polarization state of incident light. The convex point of the plum-blossom dielectric metasurface always has a hot spot with higher intensity than that in the concave point, and there is an unbalanced potential well between the two adjacent plum-blossom dielectric metasurface units so that the nanoparticles are more easily attracted and transferred to the adjacent unit with a deeper potential well. By cascading many single plum-blossom dielectric metasurface units into an array, the array forms a one-way multichannel optical control dielectric metasurface conveyor belt, which can realize nanoparticle capture and transmission. It can deliver the nanoparticles along the designated route in a dielectric metasurface. The design has great potential for optical flow control chips, which can achieve more stable nanoparticle transport through the action of rotating linearly polarized light.