MICRO-OPTOMECHANICAL MOVEMENTS (MOMs) WITH SOFT OXOMETALATES (SOMs): CONTROLLED MOTION OF SINGLE SOFT OXOMETALATE PEAPODS USING EXOTIC OPTICAL POTENTIALS

An important challenge in the field of materials design and synthesis is to deliberately design mesoscopic objects starting from well-defined precursors and inducing directed movements in them to emulate biological processes. Recently, mesoscopic metal-oxide-based soft oxometalates (SOMs) have been synthesized from well-defined molecular precursors transcending the regime of translational periodicity. Here, we show that it is actually possible to controllably move such an asymmetric SOM, with the shape of a "peapod" along complex paths using tailor-made sophisticated optical potentials created by spin–orbit interaction of light due to a tightly focused linearly polarized Gaussian beam propagating through a stratified medium in an optical trap. We demonstrate motion of individual trapped SOMs along circular paths of more than 15 μm in a perfectly controlled manner by simply varying the input polarization of the trapping laser. Such controlled motion can have a wide range of applications starting from catalysis to the construction of dynamic mesoscopic architectures.