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Microscopic metacars running on light

01.10.2021

Researchers at the Chalmers University of Technology (Sweden) have managed to create tiny vehicles that work only in the light. By superimposing an optical metasurface on top of a microscopic particle and then using a light source to control it, they were able to move tiny vehicles in a myriad of complex and precise ways - and even use them to transport other objects.

Light has the ability to move microscopic objects, a property previously used to develop the Nobel Prize-winning "optical tweezer" research idea, which uses a highly focused laser beam to manipulate and maneuver tiny particles with incredible precision.

Now a research team from Chalmers University of Technology and the University of Gothenburg has shown how even unfocused light can be used to maneuver microscopic particles in a controlled manner.

The researchers produced cars measuring 10 micrometers wide and 1 micrometer thick - one thousandth of a millimeter. The vehicles consisted of a tiny particle coated with something known as a "metasurface". Metasurfaces are ultrathin structures of carefully designed and ordered nanoparticles designed to guide light in interesting and unusual ways. They offer exciting possibilities for use in advanced components for optical applications such as cameras, microscopes and electronic displays. They are usually considered immovable objects, and their use is seen as the ability to control and affect light. But here, the researchers looked at it from a different angle, exploring how the forces resulting from changing light momentum can be used to control the metasurface.

The researchers took their microscopic vehicles, which they called "metacars", and placed them in the bottom of a tank of water, then used a weakly focused laser to shine a plane light wave at them. Through a purely mechanical process—the heat given off by the light plays no part in the effect—cars could be moved in different patterns. By adjusting the intensity and polarization of the light, the researchers are able to control the movement and speed of vehicles with high precision, moving them in different directions and using complex patterns such as figure-of-eights.

The researchers have also experimented with using vehicles as conveyors to move small particles around the tank. Metacars have proven capable of transporting objects, including microscopic polystyrene beads and yeast particles, through water with ease. They even managed to push off a dust particle 15 times the size of the metacar itself.

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