Optical tweezers, based on the trapping capability of focused laser beams, exert forces in the femto- to nano-Newton range. The optical forces, three orders of magnitude lower than contact forces, allow avoiding deformations of soft matter samples. Optical tweezers exploit their uniqueness when manipulating, sorting, making interact or separating single biological and inorganic objects of micron diameter in fluidic environments, with complete spatial freedom and all-around visibility of the manipulated sample. In the context of a collaboration project between the ESRF, the TASC (now IOM) institute of the Italian CNR and the Austrian IBN, optical tweezers have been introduced as sample manipulators for syncrotron radiation experiments. A custom optical tweezers setup has been projected, built and integrated in the environment of the ID13 beamline. The setup is currently under commissioning in order to make it exploit all its potentialities and become a customary tool for synchrotron radiation experiments. During the first experiments at ID13, the feasibility of microdiffraction experiments of optically manipulated samples has been tested. In the future, the application of microfluidics may open new routes to single particle chemistry and assembly of composite microsystems.