Overview
- Texas A&M researchers built micron-scale “metajets” that lift and steer when hit by a laser, showing controlled three-dimensional motion without unwanted spin.
- The devices are metasurfaces patterned with silicon nanopillars that redirect incoming light, turning changes in photon momentum into what the team calls metaphotonic forces.
- The control is built into the material rather than the laser beam, so the generated force depends mainly on optical power, which the model suggests could scale to larger surfaces.
- Experiments ran in a fluid to offset gravity, and the team now seeks funding to test the concept in microgravity, a key step toward any space use.
- Researchers cite long-term prospects from tiny machines to deep-space probes, including a speculative 20-year trip to Alpha Centauri, which would require vast laser power and major engineering advances.