Scientists Develop Tractor Beam Technology
Posted
October 29, 2012 by Sean McQuillan in
Featured
Science fiction fans rejoice, the future is here. Well, actually it is more of a microscopic tractor beam, that moves molecules instead of Millennium Falcons, but we’ve got to start somewhere. In all actuality, this is closer to the technology of solar sails, which uses light to pull a ship through space. Here’s how the two New York Physicists who created it explain it:
David Ruffner and David Grier of New York University instead projected two Bessel beams side by side and used a lens to angle them so that they overlapped, creating a pattern of alternating bright and dark regions along the length of the beam. Fine-tuning the beam causes photons in the bright regions, initially flowing past a chosen particle in the beam, to scatter backwards. When these photons hit the particle, they knock it to the next bright region. The particle is thus constantly pushed close to the beam’s source.
This sort of technology could have countless applications apart from space, and is very exciting! You can read their full report at NewScientist.com.
About the Author
Sean McQuillan is a lifelong gamer and movie buff. Spending his formative years writing fiction and playing role-playing games, he now spends his time writing fiction and playing role-playing games. When he has the time he is the writer for the Webcomic "Full Throttle Arcana" with David Burrola. He's studying Spanish and hopes to one day speak 5 different languages. He lives in San Diego, where he goes to school full time dual-majoring in Spanish and Web Design. He attends all the conventions he can, and has been lucky enough to serve as a judge for several masquerades.
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