Hydrodynamic micro-manipulation using optically actuated flow control

Optical tweezers have played a significant role in the advancement of micro-manipulation. However, optically trappable objects are limited to a certain size and material range. To overcome these constraints, we propose a noncontact micro-manipulation technique, which uses optically trapped particles to locally manipulate the surrounding fluid and thus freely diffusing particles within it. We show that our method can be used to successfully suppress both translational and rotational Brownian motion of a free-floating object, using hydrodynamic interactions alone, in an easily reconfigurable setup.