Electromagnetic Hyper-Lift: optical nano-tweezers with hyperbolic materials

Abstract

Optical tweezers, formed by tightly focused propagating laser beams, offer the unique capability to trap and control microscopic particles over a broad size range. However, the diffraction inherent to propagating optical fields, limits the resulting resolution and the accuracy of particle manipulation. Here we show that the phenomenon of ``auto-focusing'' inherent to hyperbolic materials in cylinder geometry, can be used for spatial control with nanometer accuracy. Furthermore, due to highly efficient light focusing in hyperbolic media that is not restricted by diffraction, the resulting electromagnetically induced forces exceed those of conventional optical tweezers by several orders of magnitude, which allows more efficient particle manipulation at reduced illumination intensity.