Surface‐plasmon‐based optical manipulation

We review recent advances achieved in the field of integrated optical manipulations based on the control of surface plasmons. In particular, we describe how intense and confined optical force fields can be precisely engineered in the vicinity of transparent surfaces patterned with plasmonic metal structures. Recent progresses in the design of such devices is presented together with the latest experiments that have demonstrated efficient trapping of micro‐objects under reduced laser intensity compared with conventional optical tweezers. Finally, we review other proposals where the use of localized surface plasmons in coupled metal nanostructures opens new perspectives in scaling down the trapping volumes well below the diffraction limit for the manipulation of single nano‐objects.