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Light Resonators Used To Move Nano-Sized Objects

Posted by timothy on from the tiny-stuff dept.

ElectricSteve writes "Scientists at Cornell University report they can now use a light beam carrying a single milliwatt of power to move objects and even change the optical properties of silicon from opaque to transparent at the nanometric scale." As the article says, such an advancement "could prove very useful for the future of micro-electromechanical (MEMS) and micro-optomechanical (MOMS) systems."

5 of 63 comments (clear)

  1. MOMS? by ickleberry · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Srsly, who comes up with these acronyms? and don't say it was mom

  2. How about giving credit where due? by Bill+Dimm · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The article doesn't give the names of any of the people involved in this, or any links where more detail can be found. Isn't it bad enough that researchers are paid crap; do they have to be anonymous too? How about giving these people some credit for their work.

  3. 1 mW is just a single milliwatt? by amirulbahr · · Score: 2, Insightful
    Is it just me or does the term "single milliwatt of power" sound odd? It seems to imply something discrete that comes in ones and twos and threes and so on. Why wouldn't you just say "a 1 mW light beam"?

    Now let's see if I get the -1 Off-topic that this post surely deserves.

  4. More info by Steve525 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    This is the same basic result as a previous article:

    http://tech.slashdot.org/story/09/10/26/1856230/New-Optomechanical-Crystal-Allows-Confinement-of-Light-and-Sound

    The structure in the current article is a ring resonator in this article. In the previous article the structure was a grating based resonator.

    I found an article with better information:

    http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=optical-force-gradient

  5. Re:Telekinesis! by drmitch · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Umm... I would LOVE to see a RATE of energy production move ANYTHING. I think they meant millijoule of energy. Please don't tell me that I'm the only one that saw this.