Study simulates mysterious beams in fiction films

In fiction films, we often see alien spacecraft or aboard "kidnap" humans with a mysterious beam of light called the tractor beam . Today, a team of researchers working at Dundee University announced they had created something similar but used ultrasound to pull objects instead of lasers.

Working in conjunction with colleagues at the University of Southampton and the University of Illinois Wesleyan, the team used an ultrasonic beam to direct the energy behind an object to force it and pull it toward the source. energy. By using an ultrasound device currently used in intensive MRI ultrasound, the team was able to move objects approximately 1 cm in size.

Dr Christine Demore from the IMSAT at the University of Dundee said: "We demonstrated the ability to exert a sufficiently large force on an object about 1 cm in size to hold. or move it by directing two identical beams of energy from the source of the supersonic emission to the back of the object. This is the first time a beam of sound has been drawn, and the first time a beam This is used to move large things. "

The object used as a target for the triangular-shaped ultrasound beam and this shape allowed the researchers to use the effects of non-conservation forces, in this case friction. When energy-balanced ultrasound beams touch the sides of the object and are deflected, they cause a pressure on the back of the object from which the object is directed toward the source of energy.

Screwdriver sounds

In addition to the experiments, Dr. Gabe Spalding of Illinois Wesleyan University has teamed up with researchers at Dundee to create a "sound screwdriver . " This screwdriver can also produce an ultrasound beam directed at an object to push and twist the object.

Many researchers have previously used lasers to create mysterious beam beam beams, but their effects are still limited at the microscopic level. The American Space Agency (NASA) has also conducted experiments in this field, but the Dundee University's tractor beam system seems to be the first unit to be able to move objects on the fly. significant.