Can light make matter orbit like planets?

Описание: The Laser Beams That Can Grab and Move Atoms

What if light wasn’t just something you see… but something you could use as fingers?
Welcome to optical tweezers — a technique where tightly focused laser beams are used to trap, hold, and move microscopic objects with extraordinary precision.

By exploiting the momentum of photons, optical tweezers can grip things as small as viruses, DNA strands, and individual atoms. When light is focused through a high-powered microscope lens, it creates a tiny electromagnetic “trap” that pulls small particles into the centre and holds them there — no contact, no damage, just pure physics.

Scientists use optical tweezers to stretch single DNA molecules, measure the forces inside living cells, move bacteria, and watch proteins at work in real time. It’s like having tractor beams for biology.

The technique was pioneered by Arthur Ashkin, who won the Nobel Prize in Physics for turning a beam of light into a set of invisible hands.

No strings.
No pincers.
Just photons doing precision work.

It’s one of the rare moments where sci-fi language is actually too conservative.

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Reference (Vancouver):
Ashkin A, Dziedzic JM, Bjorkholm JE, Chu S. Observation of a single-beam gradient force optical trap for dielectric particles. Opt Lett. 1986;11(5):288–90.

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