The tractor bean lives! The Tel Aviv University’s Holographic Optical Tweezers (HOTs) uses a beam of light as a tiny ‘tractor beam’ to manipulate microscopic objects.

HOT can manipulate up to 300 nanoparticles at a time. The technology could have applications in communications and quantum computing.

HOTS – first proposed as a theoretical possibility in 1986 – use a strongly-focused light beam to trap, manipulate and transform small amounts of matter.

The team’s now using them to create a new generation of photonic devices which can insulate light and trap it in one place without losing the light’s energy.