Using ultrasound, a team of Japanese scientists has levitated small particles, and moved them around mid-air. It's incredible to see.


This isn't the first time we've seen ultrasonic levitation, but it's a small step toward being able to move objects around once they're off the ground. Write the researchers in a paper just posted to Arxiv:

In the present study, we considered extended acoustic manipulation whereby millimetre-sized particles were levitated and moved three-dimensionally by localised ultrasonic standing waves, which were generated by ultrasonic phased arrays. Our manipulation system has two original features. One is the direction of the ultrasound beam, which is arbitrary because the force acting toward its centre is also utilised. The other is the manipulation principle by which a localised standing wave is generated at an arbitrary position and moved three-dimensionally by opposed and ultrasonic phased arrays. We experimentally confirmed that various materials could be manipulated by our proposed method.


Read the whole paper at Arxiv.