Tractor Beams Are Getting Closer (Sort of)

xt writes "A recently submitted paper in arXiv claims that by using Bessel beams it is theoretically possible to pull particles towards the light source, opening up new avenues for optical micromanipulation (the direction of the force is size dependent, so it could be used for particle sorting). There is also a simpler article translated in English (original article in Greek)."

Particle sorting...Isotopes, perhaps?

[dfetter]

Actually, this could be pretty significant if it takes some clever machine rather than a host of gigantic centrifuges to do the job.