Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Tractor Beams Come To Life

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the da-da-da-dadada-dadada dept.

Jamie is helping bring our childhood fantasies/nightmares to life with a link that says "Andrei Rhode, a researcher involved with the project, said that existing optical tweezers are able to move particles the size of a bacterium a few millimeters in a liquid. Their new technique can move objects one hundred times that size over a distance of a meter or more."

1 of 127 comments (clear)

  1. Not Really a Tractor Beam... by Richard.Tao · · Score: 4, Informative

    From the article "Because this technique needs heated gas to push the particles around, it can't work in the vacuum of outer space like the tractor beams in Star Trek."
    Also it needs lasers on both sides of the object and "tiny glass particles" near the object.This technique can in no way mimic the properties of what I consider a tractor bream: a beam of energy that pulls and object toward it. It's just a better way at moving stuff with light, which is still nifty.