Optical manipulation from the microscale to the nanoscale: fundamentals, advances and prospects.

Since the invention of optical tweezers, optical manipulation has advanced significantly in scientific areas such as atomic physics, optics and biological science. Especially in the past decade, numerous optical beams and nanoscale devices have been proposed to mechanically act on nanoparticles in increasingly precise, stable and flexible ways. Both the linear and angular momenta of light can be exploited to produce optical tractor beams, tweezers and optical torque from the microscale to the nanoscale.