Tractor beams are one of the most iconic pieces of science-fiction technology, most likely popularized through movies and TV shows such as Star Wars, Star Trek, and anything to do with advanced alien ...

The nefarious tractor beam, otherwise known as the tool singlehandedly responsible for all alien abductions resulting in a special kind of probing, is soon to become a reality. An ensemble of ...

Tractor beams make intuitive sense. Matter and energy interact with each other in countless ways throughout the Universe. Magnetism and gravity are both natural forces that can draw objects together, ...

A breakthrough technology from scientists at MIT has made it possible to manipulate particles in what has been referred to as reminiscent of the tractor beam in Star Wars and Star Trek. The microchip ...

Scientists have created a new 'tractor beam' device that can move objects distances of up to several centimetres - about 100 times further than demonstrated in earlier experiments. The work has been ...

The quest for a real life tractor beam continues, with a 2-micrometer-thick silicon light bender. The silicon metasurface changes a solid beam into a triple spiral one that can pick up particles.

Scientists present two theoretical approaches to creating light-based tractor beams, which NASA is hoping to use to capture samples for analysis in space probes and rovers.

Researchers at TMOS, the ARC Centre of Excellence for Transformative Meta-Optical Systems, have taken an important first step in the development of metasurface-enabled tractor beams—rays of light that ...