  Precise spatio-temporal control of surface bubble movement can benefit a wide
range of applications like high-throughput drug screening, combinatorial
material development, microfluidic logic, colloidal and molecular assembly,
etc. In this work, we demonstrate that surface bubbles on a solid surface are
directed by a laser to move at high speeds (> 1.8 mm/s), and we elucidate the
mechanism to be the de-pinning of the three-phase contact line (TPCL) by rapid
plasmonic heating of nanoparticles (NPs) deposited in-situ during bubble
movement. Based on our observations, we deduce a stick-slip mechanism based on
asymmetric fore-aft plasmonic heating: local evaporation at the front TPCL due
to plasmonic heating de-pins and extends the front TPCL, followed by the
advancement of the trailing TPCL to resume a spherical bubble shape to minimize
surface energy. The continuous TPCL drying during bubble movement also enables
well-defined contact line deposition of NP clusters along the moving path. Our
finding is beneficial to various microfluidics and pattern writing
applications.
