The wavelike properties of quantum matter could lead to a scaled-down version of Star Trek technology. A new kind of tractor beam could use a beam of particles to reel in atoms or molecules, physicists propose in the May 5 Physical Review Letters.
Scientists have previously created tractor beams using light or sound waves, which can pull small particles a few millimeters or centimeters (SN: 11/15/14, p. 16). But “the idea of doing this with matter waves is really groovy,” says physicist David Grier of New York University, who was not involved with the research.
Sound or light waves can pull small particles under carefully controlled conditions. For certain types of beams, waves can scatter forward off of a particle, pushing the particle back toward the source of the beam due to the law of conservation of momentum.
“We have used a very similar reasoning here,” says study coauthor Andrey Novitsky, a physicist at the Technical University of Denmark in Kongens Lyngby. But rather than light or sound, “we have something more elusive” — namely, matter waves.
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