Radiation forces on a Rayleigh dielectric sphere in a patterned optical near field.

We report on the study of the radiation forces exerted on a Rayleigh dielectric particle by a patterned optical near-field landscape at an interface decorated with resonant gold nanostructures. This configuration allows for the generation of a large array of surface subwavelength optical traps from an extended collimated beam, which may be of interest for parallel optical manipulation and sorting of submicrometer objects.