Tag Archives: tractor beam

Acoustic Holograms are Sort of Like a Star Trek Tractor Beam

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My first glimpse at a hologram came back in the ’80s when I was in a mall in Dallas, Texas. It was a video game with holograms that had lots of mirrors was at the arcade and I thought it was awesome. Fast forward to today, and researchers from the Public University of Navarre, Spain have designed something called an acoustic hologram that works sort of like a tractor beam, which can levitate and move objects in the air.

levitation_hologram_1zoom in

I say it’s “sort of” like a tractor beam because using the acoustic hologram for moving things is a bit limited right now. You can’t use it for instance to bring your beer from the kitchen to your hand while you watch the game. What the acoustic hologram can move right now are tiny, lightweight plastic beads.

Here’s a brief demonstration of the technology in action:

The object you are manipulating has to be completely within the array as well. Still, this is a good first step to a tractor beam, especially if they’re able to scale up the size of the transducers.

[via iEEE Spectrum]

A Team of Physicists Just Made a Tractor Beam

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I want a tractor beam. It would be very useful and amusing for me. Granted, I’d probably end up getting arrested, but I think whatever stupid things I decided to do with it would be very much worth it. Well, the bad news is that my arrest is getting closer, and the good news is that my toy is also getting closer.

tractor beammagnify

Physicists at the Australian National University Research School of Physics and Engineering have used a single laser to create a tractor beam that can pull or push a particle one fifth of a millimeter wide up to 20 centimeters. We’re going to need a bigger laser

The team behind the device says that the distance that the object was pulled and pushed had more to do with the physical size of the lab than the power of the machine, due to the degradation over distance inherent in lasers. What makes this new technology potentially game changing is the fact that it requires only one laser, and that it can both push and pull an object.

Yes, we’re still a long way from being able to capture a fleeing princess on her ship, the Tantive IV, but we’re a kit closer than we were last week.

[via ANU]

Scientists Create Star Trek Inspired Mini Tractor Beam

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Science fiction always turns into reality and we have seen it happen right in front of our eyes.

To prove this hypothesis true, researchers at the Department of Physics and Centre for Soft Matter Research at New York University have come up with a Star Trek-style technology, though only on a ...
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Negative radiation pressure in light could make some tractor beams real, we’re already sucked in

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Negative radiation pressure in light could make some tractor beams real, we're already sucked in

Developing a real, working tractor beam has regularly been an exercise in frustration: it often relies on brute force attempts to induce a magnetic link or an air pressure gap, either of which falls a bit short of science fiction-level elegance. The Technion-Israel Institute of Technology's Mordechai Segev has a theory that would use the subtler (though not entirely movie-like) concept of negative radiation pressure in light to move objects. By using materials that have a negative refraction index, where the light photons and their overall wave shape move in opposite directions, Segev wants to create a sweet spot where negative radiation pressure exists and an object caught in the middle can be pushed around. His early approach would use extremely thin crystals stacked in layers to manipulate the refraction. As it's theorized, the technology won't be pulling in the Millennium Falcon anytime soon -- the millimeters-wide layer intervals dictate the size of what can be pulled. Nonetheless, even the surgery-level tractor beams that Segev hopes will ultimately stem from upcoming tests would bring us much closer to the future that we've always wanted.

Negative radiation pressure in light could make some tractor beams real, we're already sucked in originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 23 Jun 2012 04:18:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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