Teleportation? Beam me up Scotty! Not quite there yet, but would you settle for a tractor beam?

Well, Ok - we're not quite there yet with teleportation, but tractor beam technology might be making some advancements in the very near future.

As we've all seen in Star Trek, tractor beams capture and can move objects using laser light.

Paul Stysley is one of three NASA scientists who just recently were awarded funding to study methods for capturing particles and transporting them using a laser light to a robotic rover or orbiting spacecraft for analysis.

Goddard laser experts (from left to right)
Barry Coyle, Paul Stysley, and Demetrios Poulios
have won NASA funding to study advanced technologies
for collecting extraterrestrial particle samples.
(Photo Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Debora McCallum)

Stysley said, “The original thought was that we could use tractor beams for cleaning up orbital debris, but to pull something that huge would be almost impossible — at least now. That’s when it bubbled up that perhaps we could use the same approach for sample collection.”

The scientists have identified three different approaches for transporting particles, as well as single molecules, viruses, ribonucleic acid, and fully functioning cells, using the power of light. Take a look at the posted article to see what the three different approaches are.. 


http://www.nasa.gov/topics/technology/features/tractor-beam.html

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/emergingtech/nasa-aiming-to-make-tractor-beams-a-reality/2952?tag=mantle_skin;content

The Navy has a LASER GUN!

The Navy has been testing a new laser gun since 2010 in partnership with Northrop Grumman. Look at this site and see the posted video.
This new laser weapon is called the "Maritime Laser Demonstrator". It focused 15 kilowatts of energy by concentrating it through a solid medium. The typical medium used is crystal. The demonstation of the new laser technology used a smaller boat.

A more powerful gun that will be able to target a cruise missile threat was tested in February 2011. This laser gun is call The FEL. This gun doesn't use a gain medium and consumes 500 kilovolts of energy, which produces a supercharged electron beam that can burn through 20 FEET OF STEEL PER SECOND.

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/04/08/navy-showboats-destructive-new-laser-gun/

New Laser Technology Could Kill Viruses and Improve DVDs

Information found at http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/07/110705150932.htm

Team from University of California, Riverside Bourns College of Engineering made a discovery in semiconductor nanowire laser technology that could POTENTIALLY do everything from kill viruses to increase storage capacity of DVDs.

Take a look at the article and see how the group was able to make a breakthrough in zinc oxide nanowire waveguide lasers, lower costs, higher powers and shorter wavelenghts.

Just a few applications for this advancement in Laser technology includes: denser DVDs, living cells could be penetrated to turn bad cells to good, purify drinking water, and drastically improve data processing and transmission.