Optical controlling of a chemical reaction

The present invention relates to a device(100) and a method for optically controlling a chemical reaction in a reaction chamber(149) comprising a reagent fluid (114). In a preferred embodiment, the chemical reaction comprises a nucleic acid sequencing on a wiregrid. Based on strong optical confinement of excitation light (110) and of cleavage light (112), the sequencing reaction can be read-out. Stepwise sequencing is achieved by using nucleotides with optically cleavable blocking moieties. After read-out the built in nucleotide is deblocked by cleavage light through the same substrate. This ensures that only bound nucleotides will be unblocked. In order to avoid overheating by cleavage light, the reagent fluid is circulated along the surface of the substrate (101)