Scientists may have discovered how to create a real-life tractor beam using electromagnetic radiation that can draw particles toward it. The result is something very akin to the tractor beam seen in science fiction media like Star Wars. Further, the scientists say they may have found a way to make it more portable.
A paper on the team’s findings is published in the journal ACS Photonics. While yes, a tractor beam sounds like something that could never exist in our real world, the actual best usage we could probably find for something like that would be in the healthcare industry.
That’s because a real-life tractor beam could make extracting certain things from the body much easier. For example, biopsies currently require either a needle wide enough to take samples of cells, or they require other more involved procedures, all of which can leave tissue damage in their wake.
However, using a tractor beam that is designed to specifically target the cells the doctors need could help cut down on the amount of slicing and scar tissue that patients need to put up with. But how exactly did they do it?
Well, scientists say they started with a triple helix solenoid beam to make the real-life tractor beam. This is essentially a twist of three different beams or strands of light. They form into a bit of a tunnel—or tube, if you prefer—and they are generated by passing a normal beam of light through a metasurface that has been specifically created using very thin nanopatterned silicon on a small panel of glass.
The beam draws up particles similarly to how a drill bit pulls sawdust, the scientists explain in their findings. The three strands of light then cradle the particle. Building off this, the scientists improved the beam to retain its light energy. This allows the beam to be more portable while still attracting particles to it.
Of course, we’re still a long way off from actually attracting things much larger than regular old particles. Combined with new blood tests that can detect over 50 types of cancer, a real-life tractor beam could also help make biopsies much more efficient and less invasive.
