British Engineers have developed a system that can grab, hold and move small objects without touching them, using “holograms” made of sound waves.
It offers the kind of remote control similar to the “tractor beams” of science fiction.
These “holograms” were able to control small beads up to 5mm across. The key thing about this design is, it works from just one side – including above or below the beads – instead of requiring the object to be surrounded by loudspeakers.
This work could help develop remote surgical instruments for the targeted drug delivery.
Sound can levitate objects of different sizes and materials through air, water and tissue. This allows us to manipulate cells, liquids, compounds or living things without touching or contaminating them. However, acoustic levitation has required the targets to be enclosed with acoustic elements or had limited manoeuvrability.
Now the British Researchers optimized the phases used to drive an ultrasonic phased array and showed that acoustic levitation can be employed to translate, rotate and manipulate particles using even a single-sided emitter. They introduced the holographic acoustic elements framework that permits the rapid generation of traps and provides a bridge between optical and acoustical trapping.
Single-beam levitation could manipulate particles inside our body for applications in targeted drug delivery or acoustically controlled micro-machines that do not interfere with magnetic resonance imaging.
