Light is a powerful tool to manipulate matter, but existing approaches for manipulation, such as optical traps and tweezers, usually necessitate tightly focused light to realize the stabilizing optical potential. This in turn imposes fundamental limitations on the properties of the manipulated object and the type of dynamics that can be achieved. Here, we discuss how incorporation of engineered sub-wavelength elements can remove the need for a focused optical potential. By tailoring the anisotropy of light scattering along the object’s surface, the stabilizing potential can be self-created by the object, and not by the laser beam. We outline a general formalism for the motion of an object with sub-wavelength structure in a light field, and discuss several kinds of photonic platforms that can realize such “self-stabilizing” dynamics.
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