Building with Optical Tweezers – Futureq

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Light-based ‘tractor beam’ assembles materials at the nanoscale – Science Daily
Researchers at the University of Washington have developed a method that could make reproducible manufacturing at the nanoscale possible. The team adapted a light-based technology employed widely in biology — known as optical traps or optical tweezers — to operate in a water-free liquid environment of carbon-rich organic solvents, thereby enabling new potential applications.
As the team reports in a paper published Oct. 30 in the journal Nature Communications, the optical tweezers act as a light-based “tractor beam” that can assemble nanoscale semiconductor materials precisely into larger structures. Unlike the tractor beams of science fiction, which grab spaceships, the team employs the optical tweezers to trap materials that are nearly one billion times shorter than a meter.
“This is a new approach to nanoscale manufacturing,” said co-senior author Peter Pauzauskie, a UW associate professor of materials science and engineering, faculty member at the Molecular Engineering & Sciences Institute and the Institute for Nano-engineered Systems, and a senior scientist at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. “There are no chamber surfaces involved in the manufacturing process, which minimizes the formation of strain or other defects. All of the components are suspended in solution, and we can control the size and shape of the nanostructure as it is assembled piece by piece.”
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/11/191104130450.htm