Tweezers Of Light

jasonripp writes: "Seems those wacky scientists have discovered a method to use light to easily move tiny particles of matter with a high degree of precision. This has applications in biotech, computers and more. The article is here." It's one of those cool low-tech inspirations, too -- the "light tweezers" these scientists have devised were inspired by cheap laser-pointer accessories. Update: 03/06 10:00 PM by T : We have compensated for the Dark Side moving that URL around.

One particle at a time

[Dancin_Santa]

So how long does it take for one of these contraptions to remove splinters?

Dancin Santa

Re:Not that new...

[Amyloid]

Indeed, this opens up many device possibilities ...of course the science that one can do is just as, if not more, interesting than the other 'applications'. We hope to continue to see our work primarily from that perspective.

(Nonanonymous Coward trying to go through his cool phase from the University of Pizza, Polish, and Politics)

Neomaxizoomdweebee!

Lasers the Miracle Machines

[Cheese_isgood]

Lasers, you can slice, dice, even fix your eyesight with them. But what a hassle why not program one into your remote instead. Even couch potatoes deserve some hand held electronic toy.

Web page

[Stevis]

This is actually my research lab, although I don't work on this stuff (the user known as Amyloid does...)

You can see more info (on tweezers in general) from our site [uchicago.edu] or our advisor's site [uchicago.edu]

Stevis

Annoying Web Site

[Eviltar]

The link to the story is now here [austin360.com], since "today" is no longer "Monday". Looks like it will only be good for a week.

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Not that new...

[Ssolstice]

I'm sure they may be working on a smaller scale, but researchers have been using laser tweezers [tamu.edu] to insert/remove/adjust objects inside cells for years. It's kind of fun to beat the crap out of paramecium with a PVC pellet. I'm just waiting for some giant alien to give me a taste of my own medicine...

Tractor beams?

[Archanagor]

Because of its fluid nature, the liquid crystal flows ever so gently to send light beams in thousands of directions to make "tweezers" that could gently move one piece of matter at a time or thousands of pieces simultaneously -- and in any direction.

If I didn't know better, I'd say this sounds like a tractor beam.

Science sounds more like science fiction every day.

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