Size-Selective Optical Printing of Silicon Nanoparticles through Their Dipolar Magnetic Resonance

Silicon nanoparticles possess unique size-dependent optical properties due to their strong electric and magnetic resonances in the visible range. However, their widespread application has been limited, in comparison with other (e.g., metallic) nanoparticles, because their preparation on monodisperse colloids remains challenging. Exploiting the unique properties of Si nanoparticles in nano-and microdevices calls for methods able to sort and organize them from a colloidal suspension onto specific positions of solid substrates with nanometric precision. We demonstrate that surfactant-free silicon nanoparticles of a predefined and narrow (sigma < 10 nm) size range can be selectively immobilized on a substrate by optical printing from a polydisperse colloidal suspension. The size selectivity is based on differential optical forces that can be applied on nanoparticles of different sizes by tuning the light wavelength to the size-dependent magnetic dipolar resonance of the nanoparticles.