Scientists Use Graphene to Construct Tractor Beam

News from the future! And it includes our (well, mine at least) favorite wonder material: graphene!!

In the latest issue of Optics Express, the group reports that when using a 90mW laser, their tractor beam in a box can produce about a micronewton of pulling force. The setup is deceptively simple. The scientists vapor-coated a sliver of glass with reflective gold, and then stuck a flake of cross-linked graphene to the other side. Then, they pointed blue, cyan, and green lasers at the flake of graphene. Lo and behold, it moved toward the laser emitter.

Extremetech.com, Jan 31, 2023 - Scientists Use Graphene to Construct Tractor Beam.

That is the headline.,Here is more info on how/why it works:

The device works partly by way of graphene’s unique properties. Graphene is optically absorptive, meaning it retains some percent of the energy when photons hit it. It’s also a semiconductor and an effective heat pipe. So effective, the paper concludes, that when the scientists pointed the laser at the graphene sandwich, the graphene carried that energy right to the far side of the piece. Thermodynamics says that hot things emit more energy than cold things, all else being equal. In the lab environment, that differential heating was enough to make the object move.

The coldness of space, and the lack of drag on the object, is expected to be more effective. And of course there is the question of scale, like can they pull the Galileo shuttle out of the atmosphere to save Spock or will it be limited in scope??

Either way, looks like The Council of Nine have let one more Star Trek technology out of the bag!!

All kidding aside, I can see a “Roomba satellite” cleaning the LEO trash out of the way (a swarm of them). If not picking up the space junk then perturbing the orbit so it crashes back to the Spacecraft Graveyard in the Pacific!

Still cool stuff!!

Like I have been saying, light is weirder than we think!

More info (for those of us who have problems remembering), here is a link for the Council of Nine.

Exopolitics.org: Contact with the Council of Nine & Roddenberry’s Star Trek Future.

a reply to: TEOTWAWKIAIFF

That's pretty cool.

a reply to: TEOTWAWKIAIFF

What happens when the target is not graphene and the heat is not conducted away?

a reply to: pteridine

Not certain but “normal laser” sounds like the answer (the article mentions optical tweezers and solar sails which use photons to interact with matter to move it [push away].

The article is not clear on which side is being hit by the laser first. My first read was “PVD gold side” was the target with the laser passing through to the graphene layer which dissipated the heat causing the differential. But upon rereading it could be the other way!!

It seems that the sandwich material is needed to work (i.e., tractor beam).

And they can (and have made multi layers) so who knows if that helps?! Because “more is always better” is the typical mentality. Which does not always work when it comes to quantum effects!

This was the announcement that “hey! This works”!! But so far, in the lab under certain conditions.

originally posted by: TEOTWAWKIAIFF

This was the announcement that “hey! This works”!! But so far, in the lab under certain conditions.

Yup that's how I read it. But...... the first "Hey! This works" is the first step towards "hey, This really works and we can use it for stuff!" and eventually "Hey guys! We have a real tractor beam!" even if that takes a while... so still an exciting little discovery!

a reply to: servovenford

We are a bunch of clever little monkeys!!

Some other news that may (or may not) go along with this announcement:

Phys.org, Jan 24, 2023 - Plasma thrusters used on satellites could be much more powerful than previously believed.

Article gist: they pumped more energy into the ion thrusters than they were designed for (minor mods) and they worked at that new power level. Which could be used for larger craft. That would get us to a small percentage of the speed of light without the need for hauling fuel [eta: I was wrong about that. It doesn’t say how fast it would go]

Now, let’s play “future engineer” and combine the two with one more item: nuclear fusion. Then we have electricity, ion engines (modified to shed heat), and a new tangled tractor beam… sound familiar??

That is why I included the whole Council of Nine stuff; seems like we are being (??) nudged towards an idea that we already understand.

(I am typing this on my “communicator” that actually beeps like Captain Kirk’s when I get a text message!!)



eta: yeah, it is cool stuff! Even without the CT stuff!