Micro-OptoMechanical Movements (MOMs) with SoftOxometalates (SOMs): Controlled Motion of Single Soft-Oxometalate Pea-pods Using Exotic Optical Potentials

Abstract

An important challenge in the field of materials design and synthesis is to deliberately design mesoscopic objects starting from well-defined precursors and inducing directed movements in them to emulate biological processes. Recently, mesoscopic metal-oxide based Soft Oxo Metalates (SOMs) have been synthesized from well-defined molecular precursors transcending the regime of translational periodicity. Here we show that it is actually possible to controllably move such an asymmetric SOM-with the shape of a `pea-pod' along complex paths using tailor-made sophisticated optical potentials created by spin-orbit interaction due to a tightly focused linearly polarized Gaussian beam propagating through stratified media in an optical trap. We demonstrate motion of individual trapped SOMs along circular paths of more than 15 $\mu$m in a perfectly controlled manner by simply varying the input polarization of the trapping laser. Such controlled motion can have a wide range of application starting from catalysis to the construction of dynamic mesoscopic architectures.