title: Optical trapping through the localized surface-plasmon resonance of engineered gold nanoblock pairs.
abstract: We have investigated the plasmonic trapping of dielectric nanoparticles by using engineered gold nanoblock pairs with ~5-nm gaps. Pairs with surface-plasmon resonance peaks at the incident wavelength allow the trapping of 350-nm-diameter nanoparticles with 200 W/cm2 laser intensities, and their plasmon resonance properties and trapping performance are drastically modified by varying the nanoblock size of ~20%. In addition, plasmon resonance properties of nanoblock pairs strongly depend on the direction of the linear polarization of the incident laser, which determines the trapping performance.
authors.affiliation: Research Institute for Electronic Science, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan.
authors.forename: Yoshito
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Tanaka
authors.forename: Keiji
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Sasaki