Optical trapping and control of a dielectric nanowire by a nanoaperture.

We demonstrate that a single sub-wavelength nanoaperture in a metallic thin film can be used to achieve dynamic optical trapping and control of a single dielectric nanowire. A nanoaperture can trap a nanowire, control its orientation when illuminated by a linearly polarized incident field, and rotate the nanowire when illuminated by a circularly polarized incident field. Compared to other designs, this approach has the advantage of a low-power driving field entailing low heating and photodamage.