Resonant elements contactless coupled to bolometric micro-stripes

One of the main technical difficulties in the fabrication of optical antennas working as light detectors is the proper design and manufacture of auxiliary elements as load lines and signal extraction structures. These elements need to be quite small to reach the location of the antennas and should have a minimal effect on the response of the device. Unfortunately this is not an easy task and signal extraction lines resonate along with the antenna producing a complex signal that usually masks the one given by the antenna. In order to decouple the resonance from the transduction we present in this contribution a parametric analysis of the response of a bolometric stripe that is surrounded by resonant dipoles with different geometries and orientations. We have checked that these elements should provide a signal proportional to the polarization state of the incoming light.

Light-driven transport of plasmonic nanoparticles on demand

Laser traps provide contactless manipulation of plasmonic nanoparticles (NPs) boosting the development of numerous applications in science and technology. The known trapping configurations allow immobilizing and moving single NPs or assembling them, but they are not suitable for massive optical transport of NPs along arbitrary trajectories. Here, we address this challenging problem and demonstrate that it can be handled by exploiting phase gradients forces to both confine and propel the NPs. The developed optical manipulation tool allows for programmable transport routing of NPs to around, surround or impact on objects in the host environment. An additional advantage is that the proposed confinement mechanism works for off-resonant but also resonant NPs paving the way for transport with simultaneous heating, which is of interest for targeted drug delivery and nanolithography. These findings are highly relevant to many technological applications including micro/nano-fabrication, micro-robotics and biomedicine.