Optical tractor beam pushes and pulls objects at greatest distance yet
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.028359
Guardian : A hollow laser has been developed that performs like a tractor beam to push and pull objects over relatively large distances. The objects it moves are only 0.2 mm in diameter, but it can move them up to 20 cm—more than 100 times as far as any previous tractor beam. Created by Wieslaw Krolikowski of the Australian National University and his colleagues, the hollow laser acts like a tube and surrounds the object, and the light heats the object’s surface. When air particles hit the heated areas, they are accelerated away, which causes the object to move in the opposite direction. The researchers believe that the effect could be extended over distances of meters, but their lab was not large enough to test the theory.