“Hearst Magazines and Yahoo may earn commissions or revenue from certain articles through these links.”

• Microscope “tractor beams,” known to scientists as optical tweezers, come either in bulky, expensive configurations or in smaller, chip-sized devices.

• However, this second type of devices has a major drawback: they generally cannot manipulate cells away from the surface of their chips, which can damage the samples studied.

• The MIT researchers thought they had solved this problem by creating a new phase model for the chip’s microscopic antennas, making it possible to “shoot” particles more than a millimeter from the surface of the chip (about 100 times farther than which was previously possible). ).

“Engage the tractor beam” is a well-known science fiction phrase, but the idea of ​​this type of energy manipulation is more real than you think. In recent years, scientists have developed tractor beam-like technology with the hope of cleaning up some space debris or move other types of macro sized objects around.

And while images of the USS Enterprise or the Death Star bringing a rogue spaceship to heel come to mind, tractor rays of the here and now are more applicable in the microscopic world, where they are more commonly known as optical tweezers. Basically, this technique uses light to manipulate incredibly small objects, down to the size of a single atom. Despite this extremely small use case, most of these devices are large, specialized setups. But now, scientists at MIT have managed to create a tractor beam device that fits in the palm of your hand. And can manipulate objects much further than its previous chip-based predecessors. The researchers detailed their work last month in the magazine Natural communications.

Unlike their bulky counterparts, chip tweezers are compact, mass-produced, and more widely accessible. But they have a fairly significant drawback: the distance of their “tractor rays” does not extend very far beyond the ground surfaces. chips themselves. This can sometimes damage the chips, as well as the cells being studied. However, the MIT team believes they have overcome this limitation by using an integrated optical phase array capable of manipulating cells over a distance more than 100 times greater than previously possible.

“This work opens new possibilities for chip-based optical tweezers by enabling cell trapping and hair removal at much greater distances than previously demonstrated,” Jelena Notaros of MIT, lead author of the study, said in a press release. She also called the breakthrough an “orders of magnitude improvement” over previous attempts. “It’s exciting to think about the different applications that could be made possible by this project. technology.”

Optical traps and tweezers work by capturing and manipulating tiny particles in focused beams of light. Researchers can then direct the beams as they wish. However, biological samples are generally sterile (via a glass coverslip approximately 150 microns thick), so it is very useful to increase the monitoring distance beyond one millimeter. And because of the low cost of the system (compared to expensive microscope setups), it could also give more laboratories access to this useful research tool.

“With silicon photonics, we can take measurements on a large scale, usually on a laboratory scale. system and integrate it on a chip. Notaros said in a press release. “This presents a great solution for biologists, as it provides them with optical trapping and pinching functionality without the overhead of a complicated bulk optical setup.”

To create the chip, the researchers used an integrated optical phase array, which contains microscales antennas which are individually capable of directing the beam of light emitted by the chip. The MIT breakthrough allowed the development of a new phase model for each antenna so that it could perform optical trapping and pinching away from the chip surface.

So, while these microscope Tractor beams may not soon thwart the evil plans of a galactic scoundrel, they explore an exciting world. border discovery that is unique to them.

You might also like