Optical trapping and manipulation of plasmonic nanoparticles: fundamentals, applications, and perspectives

This feature article discusses the optical trapping and manipulation of plasmonic nanoparticles, an area of current interest with potential applications in nanofabrication, sensing, analytics, biology and medicine. We give an overview over the basic theoretical concepts relating to optical forces, plasmon resonances and plasmonic heating. We discuss fundamental studies of plasmonic particles in optical traps and the temperature profiles around them. We place a particular emphasis on our own work employing optically trapped plasmonic nanoparticles towards nanofabrication, manipulation of biomimetic objects and sensing.