Optical tweezers enable non-contact and high-precision manipulation of micro- and nanoscale particles, and have found broad applications in biophysics, materials science, quantum optics, and related fields. However, conventional optical tweezer systems rely on bulky optical components such as high-numerical-aperture objectives and spatial light modulators, which limits their applications in miniaturized and integrated systems. In recent years, the rapid development of optical metasurfaces has provided a new technical route toward ultracompact and multifunctional optical tweezers. Nevertheless, metasurfaces based on conventional materials are prone to significant localized thermal effects under continuous high-power laser irradiation, leading to degraded device performance, reduced stability, and shortened service lifetime. These limitations hinder the reliable application of metasurface-based optical tweezers under extreme conditions such as high temperature and high-power laser operation.

In collaboration with the team led by Prof. Zhipeng Wei at Changchun University of Science and Technology, the research teams led by Prof. Chongxin Shan and Prof. Peinan Ni at Zhengzhou University reported a diamond metasurface-based optical tweezer platform with enhanced robustness in Advanced Science. Taking advantage of diamond’s ultrahigh thermal conductivity, low thermal expansion coefficient, and high laser damage threshold, the researchers designed and fabricated diamond metasurface optical tweezers that can maintain structural integrity and optical stability under high-power laser illumination. These devices include single-focus and 2 × 2 array diamond metalenses, as well as diamond vortex metasurfaces carrying different orbital angular momenta. The system successfully realized stable two-dimensional trapping and precise translation of silica microspheres, as well as controllable rotation through angular momentum transfer.

This work provides an experimental platform for optical tweezers that combines high thermal stability, high-power laser tolerance, and miniaturized device architecture. It shows promising application prospects in microfluidic chips, precision nanomanipulation, and extreme-environment photonics, where both thermal management and miniaturization are critically required.