'Tractor beam' manipulates and fabricates at nanoscale

The researchers at the University of Washington have adapted optical traps or optical tweezers, which are normally used by biologists, to operate in a water-free liquid environment of carbon-rich organic solvents.

In a paper published in Nature Communications, the team said the optical tweezers act as a light-based ‘tractor beam’ that can assemble nanoscale semiconductor materials precisely into larger structures.

"This is a new approach to nanoscale manufacturing," said co-senior author Peter Pauzauskie, a UW associate professor of materials science and engineering, faculty member at the Molecular Engineering & Sciences Institute and the Institute for Nano-engineered Systems, and a senior scientist at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. "There are no chamber surfaces involved in the manufacturing process, which minimises the formation of strain or other defects. All of the components are suspended in solution, and we can control the size and shape of the nanostructure as it is assembled piece by piece."