acoustic tractor beam tagged posts

Working principle of virtual vortices: intertwined short vortices of opposite directions are emitted to trap and stabilize the particle. Credit: University of Bristol

Acoustic tractor beams use the power of sound to hold particles in mid-air, and unlike magnetic levitation, they can grab most solids or liquids. For the first time University of Bristol engineers have shown it is possible to stably trap objects larger than the wavelength of sound in an acoustic tractor beam. This discovery opens the door to the manipulation of drug capsules or micro-surgical implements within the body. Container-less transportation of delicate larger samples is now also a possibility and could lead to levitating humans.

Researchers previously thought that acoustic tractor beams were fundamentally limited to ...

This image shows levitating a 3cm diameter expanded polysterine sphere with a DIY portable tractor beam. Credit: Asier Marzo

Last year Asier Marzo, then a doctoral student at the Public University of Navarre, helped develop the first single-sided acoustic tractor beam – that is, the first realization of trapping and pulling an object using sound waves from only one direction. Now a research assistant at the University of Bristol, Marzo has lead a team that adapted the technology to be, for all intents and purposes, 3-D printable by anyone (with some assembly required, of course)...