Eideard

In findings that took the experimenters three years to believe, University of Michigan engineers and their collaborators have demonstrated that light itself can twist ribbons of nanoparticles.

Matter readily bends and twists light. That’s the mechanism behind optical lenses and polarizing 3-D movie glasses. But the opposite interaction has rarely been observed, said Nicholas Kotov, principal investigator on the project…

While light has been known to affect matter on the molecular scale—bending or twisting molecules a few nanometers in size—it has not been observed causing such drastic mechanical twisting to larger particles. The nanoparticle ribbons in this study were between one and four micrometers long. A micrometer is one-millionth of a meter.

“I didn’t believe it at the beginning,” Kotov said. “To be honest, it took us three and a half years to really figure out how photons of light can lead to such a remarkable change in rigid structures a thousand times bigger than molecules.”

Kotov and his colleagues had set out in this study to create “superchiral” particles—spirals of nano-scale mixed metals that could theoretically focus visible light to specks smaller than its wavelength. Materials with this unique “negative refractive index” could be capable of producing Klingon-like invisibility cloaks, said Sharon Glotzer, a professor…also involved in the experiments. The twisted nanoparticle ribbons are likely to lead to the superchiral materials, the professors say…

The light twists the ribbons by causing a stronger repulsion between nanoparticles in them.

The twisted ribbon is a new shape in nanotechnology, Kotov said. Besides superchiral materials, he envisions clever applications for the shape and the technique used to create it…

This newly-discovered twisting effect could also lead to microelectromechanical systems that are controlled by light. And it could be utilized in lithography, or microchip production.

I’d love to see this in stop-motion. Might also help me to understand. Descriptive geometry is one of my least-favorite subjects.