Tokyo team adds stability to acoustic tweezer technology

The ‘acoustic tweezers’ could already lift things from reflective surfaces without physical contact, but stability remained an issue. Now, using an adaptive algorithm to fine-tune how the tweezers are controlled, the team at Tokyo Metropolitan University have considerably improved how stably the particles can be lifted. With further miniaturisation, this technology could be deployed in numerous environments, including space, for contactless, contamination-free manipulation of small objects.

In 2021, Dr Shota Kondo and Associate Professor Kan Okubo from Tokyo Metropolitan University realised contactless lift and movement of millimetre-sized particles using a hemispherical array of ultrasound transducers. The transducers would be driven individually according to a unique algorithm, allowing them to set up fields of sound pressure which lifted and moved objects. Despite this success, the stability of their 'acoustic tweezers' remained problematic.

Now, the same team have devised a way of using the same setup to achieve significant enhancements in how they can lift particles from rigid surfaces.