Nanostructured dielectric metasurfaces offer unprecedented opportunities to manipulate light by imprinting an arbitrary phase gradient on an impinging wavefront¹. This has resulted in the realization of a range of flat analogues to classical optical components, such as lenses, waveplates and axicons^2,3,4,5,6. However, the change in linear and angular optical momentum⁷ associated with phase manipulation also results in previously unexploited forces and torques that act on the metasurface itself. Here we show that these optomechanical effects can be utilized to construct optical metavehicles—microscopic particles that can travel long distances under low-intensity plane-wave illumination while being steered by the polarization of the incident light. We demonstrate movement in complex patterns, self-correcting motion and an application as transport vehicles for microscopic cargoes, which include unicellular organisms. The abundance of possible optical metasurfaces attests to the prospect of developing a wide variety of metavehicles with specialized functional behaviours.

纳米结构电介质超表面通过在入射波前¹上印上任意相位梯度，提供了前所未有的操纵光的机会。这导致实现了一系列类似于经典光学元件的平面类似物，例如透镜、波片和轴棱镜^2,3,4,5,6。然而，线性和角光动量的变化⁷与相位操纵相关的过程也会导致以前未利用的力和力矩作用在超表面本身上。在这里，我们展示了这些光机械效应可用于构建光学元载体——可以在低强度平面波照明下长距离行进同时被入射光的偏振控制的微观粒子。我们展示了复杂模式的运动、自我校正运动以及作为微观货物（包括单细胞生物）的运输工具的应用。大量可能的光学超表面证明了开发各种具有专门功能行为的超载具的前景。