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Mars Base

Star Trek's 'tractor' beam created in miniature by researchers - 0 views

phys.org/...ar-trek-tractor-miniature.html

scibyte79 TractorBeam

shared by Mars Base on 25 Jan 13 - No Cached
  • Although light manipulation techniques have existed since the 1970s, this is the first time a light beam has been used to draw objects towards the light source, albeit at a microscopic level.
  • Researchers
  • have found a way to generate a special optical field that efficiently reverses radiation pressure of light.
  • ...12 more annotations...
  • The new technique could lead to more efficient medical testing, such as in the examination of blood samples
  • The team
  • discovered a technique which will allow them to provide 'negative' force acting upon minuscule particles
  • Normally when matter and light interact the solid object is pushed by the light and carried away in the stream of photons
  • Such radiation force was first identified by Johanes Kepler when observing that tails of comets point away from the sun
  • Over recent years researchers have realised that while this is the case for most of the optical fields, there is a space of parameters when this force reverses.
  • scientists
  • have now demonstrated the first experimental realisation of this concept together with a number of exciting applications for bio-medical photonics and other disciplines
  • The exciting aspect is that the occurrence of negative force is very specific to the properties of the object, such as size and composition
  • allows optical sorting of micro-objects in a simple and inexpensive device
  • optical fractionation has been identified as one of the most promising bio-medical applications of optical manipulation allowing
  • scientists identified certain conditions, in which objects held by the "tractor" beam force-field, re-arranged themselves to form a structure which made the beam even stronger
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