this post was submitted on 07 Oct 2024
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Engineers create a real-life tractor beam, but it only manipulates tiny particles (www.techspot.com)
submitted 1 month ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
4 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

MIT has created a chip-based optical tractor beam that can focus a penetrating beam of light over 5 millimeters away from the surface of the chip itself. That might not sound like much, but it's a game-changer compared to previous integrated "optical tweezers" that could only work within a few microns of the chip. Those older approaches essentially had to remove cells from their sterile glass containers (used commonly for biological experiments) and place them directly on the chip's surface, raising contamination risks.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 month ago

Good news! Everything is made of tiny particles!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

Seems like a crazy breakthrough, nice that they started it on a chip, it'll be quick to scale up

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I have no idea how it works, but I always found tractor beams to be fascinating. I wonder just how far it can be scaled up to?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago

Up to 5 millimeters