Optical force, coming from momentum exchange during light-matter interactions, has been widely utilized to manipulate microscopic objects, though mostly in vacuum or in liquids. By contrast, due to the light-induced thermal effect, photophoretic force provides an alternative and effective way to transport light-absorbing particles in ambient gases. However, in most cases these forces work independently. Here, by employing the synergy of optical force and photophoretic force, we propose and experimentally demonstrate a configuration which can drive a micron-size metallic plate moving back and forth on a tapered fiber with supercontinuum light in ambient air. Optical pulling and oscillation of the metallic plate are experimentally realized. The results might open exhilarating possibilities in applications of optical driving and energy conversion.

Metasurfaces, which consist of resonant metamaterial elements in the form of two‐dimensional thin planar structures, retain great capabilities in manipulating electromagnetic wave and potential applications in modifying interaction with fluorescent molecules. The metasurfaces with magnetic responses are favorable to weakening fluorescence quenching while less investigated in controlling fluorescence. In this paper, we demonstrate control over fluorescence emission by engineering the magnetic and electric modes in plasmonic metasurfaces consisting of 45‐nm‐thick gold split‐ring‐resonators (SRRs). The fluorescence emission exhibits an enhancement factor of ∼18 and is predominantly x‐polarized with assistance of the magnetic mode excited by oblique incidence with an x‐polarized electric field. The magnetic and electric modes excited by oblique incidence with a y‐polarized electric field contribute to the rotation of emission polarization with respect to the incident polarization. The results demonstrate manipulating the interaction of fluorescent emitters with different resonant modes of the SRR‐based metasurface at the nanoscale by the polarization of incident light, providing potential applications of metasurfaces in a wide variety of areas, including optical nanosources, fluorescence spectroscopy and compact biosensors.

Au nanoparticles show large third-order nonlinear effect and ultra-fast response. Here a high nonlinear aggregate film based on self-assembled gold nanoparticles is reported and its third-order nonlinear refractive index coefficient is measured by Z-scan experiment. The third-order nonlinear refractive index coefficient of the Au nanoparticle aggregate film (γ1 = 9.2 × 10−9 cm2/W) is found to be larger than that of an 8-nm-thick sputtered Au film (γ2 = 6.5 × 10−9 cm2/W). This large nonlinear effect can be attributed to the strong field enhancement due to localized plasmon resonances between Au nanoparticles. The result shows that the self-assembled Au nanoparticle aggregate film could be a promising candidate as a third-order nonlinear optical material.