U.S. scientists learn how to levitate tiny objects

[Yoink 7]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090107/sc_nm/...DJBJ8254KoDW7oF

CHICAGO (Reuters) – U.S. scientists have found a way to levitate the very smallest objects using the strange forces of quantum mechanics, and said on Wednesday they might use it to help make tiny nanotechnology machines.

They said they had detected and measured a force that comes into play at the molecular level using certain combinations of molecules that repel one another.

The repulsion can be used to hold molecules aloft, in essence levitating them, creating virtually friction-free parts for tiny devices, the researchers said.

Federico Capasso, an applied physicist at Harvard University in Massachusetts, whose study appears in the journal Nature, said he believed that detection of this force opened the possibility of a whole new class of tiny gadgets.

The team, including researchers at the National Institutes of Health, has not yet levitated an object, but Capasso said he now knows how to do it. "This is an experiment we are sure will work," he said. His team has already filed for patents.

"By reducing the friction that hinders motion and contributes to wear and tear, the new technique provides a theoretical means for improving machinery at the microscopic and even molecular level," Dr. Duane Alexander of the NIH's National Institute of Child Health and Human Development said.

"The emerging technology of nanomechanics has the potential to improve medicine and other fields," he said in a statement.

The discovery involves quantum mechanics, the principles that govern nature's smallest particles.

By altering and combining molecules, tiny machines could be devised which could have applications in surgery, manufacturing food and fuel and boosting computer speed.

The discovery arose from Capasso's prior work as vice president of physical research at Bell Labs, the research arm of telecoms gear marker Lucent Technologies, now Alcatel-Lucent.

"I started to think how can I use these exotic quantum mechanical forces for technology," he said in a telephone interview.

Bell had been working on new devices known as Micro Electromechanical Systems or MEMS, the technology used in air bag sensors to measure deceleration of cars. "We started to play with nanomechanics or micromechanics," Capasso said.

He knew that as devices became smaller and smaller, they would fall prey to what is known as the Casimir force, an attractive force that comes into play when two very tiny metallic surfaces make very close contact.

In very small objects, this force can cause moving parts to stick together, an effect known as stiction.

A Russian team had predicted this force could be reversed using the right combination of materials.

For Capasso's experiment, the team immersed a gold-coated sphere in a liquid and measured the force as the sphere was first attracted to a metallic plate, then repelled from a plate made from silica.

Capasso said levitating is next. "We just have to do it," he said.

[Niels Bohr 72]

Stupid reporter can't even report things right.

[mawilson 2,133]

Stupid reporter can't even report things right.

That's why we have you, consolemaster.

Can you correct him?

[Niels Bohr 72]

I'm looking at his paper. The reporter make it sound like he changed the orbitals and orientation of the electrons so that the object levitates such as the case with magnetism. Weird.

[Ban Hammer 13,337]

I'm looking at his paper. The reporter make it sound like he changed the orbitals and orientation of the electrons so that the object levitates such as the case with magnetism. Weird.

it's science, jim, but not as we know it.

[NickD 202]

I'm looking at his paper. The reporter make it sound like he changed the orbitals and orientation of the electrons so that the object levitates such as the case with magnetism. Weird.

it's science, jim, but not as we know it.

Really amazing they can levitate a 1/4 of a gram insect with an electromagnet only the size of a skyscraper. I am impressed.

After experiencing an MRI and being hit with a million gauss, took me several days for me to rearrange all of my molecules the way they were before that MRI. Wonder how that insect felt?

Still nobody knows nothing about gravity, what kind of force is it, can it be shielded, how fast does it travel through space, etc, but we do know, can be created by centrifugal force, but we ain't flying off the earth. But most certainly there, a hammer slipped out of my tool belt and landed on my toe, that hurt.

[Scott & Lai 12]

Still nobody knows nothing about gravity, what kind of force is it, can it be shielded, how fast does it travel through space, etc, but we do know, can be created by centrifugal force, but we ain't flying off the earth. But most certainly there, a hammer slipped out of my tool belt and landed on my toe, that hurt.

We do know some things about gravity; one of those is that gravity and centrifugal are two completely different things.

[SpiritAlight 1]

Yes, all of this is truly fascinating.

I have had the experience of being unwillingly attracted to a larger object:

when you are a little thing on a little scooter and bombing along at your highest clip – approximately 75km/hr – and a truck passes you, you learn to lean away from it (and hold on to your handles tightly) as it sucks you in when it is beside you. It is the strangest sensation. Scary, too.

I believe anything including levitation is possible once you set your mind to it.

Create your reality.

Have you seen the movie "What the Bleep Do We Know?"?

I highly recommend it!

[SpiritAlight 1]

Here's some fun to try at home.

This guy is an adorable geek with an adorable scientific experiment:

!

[andreea 0]

quantum physics rules. I always believed we could fly, walk on water, whatever, and quantum physics is the only one to agree with me.

[Niels Bohr 72]

NickD,

Centrifugal force is fake. The only force that occurs when an object travels in a straight line, and acceleration is towards the center is known a centripedal.

People make those mistakes all the time.

[Jasman0717 9]

quantum physics rules. I always believed we could fly, walk on water, whatever, and quantum physics is the only one to agree with me.

Warp 4 Mr. Sulu

[almaty 19]

I'm looking at his paper. The reporter make it sound like he changed the orbitals and orientation of the electrons so that the object levitates such as the case with magnetism. Weird.

it's science, jim, but not as we know it.

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

More Roswell technology released.

Zero Point Fields FTW!!!

[Nagishkaw 510]