Overview
- Texas A&M researchers showed that tiny “metajet” devices can be lifted and steered in full 3D using only laser light, with no physical contact.
- The team designed metasurfaces—ultrathin patterns that shape how light reflects and refracts—to convert photon momentum into precise ‘metaphotonic’ forces.
- Their framework builds on generalized Snell’s law and momentum conservation to predict both lateral and vertical forces for stable, steerable motion.
- Force production depends mainly on light power rather than object size, and the team says the approach could, in principle, scale to larger systems and even cut an Alpha Centauri trip to about 20 years.
- The micron-scale devices were fabricated at Texas A&M’s AggieFab facility, tested in fluid to offset gravity, published in Newton, and will next be evaluated in planned microgravity experiments as the group seeks external funding, with related efforts also under way at ESA, Caltech, and RIT.