Light May Control Future MEMS
RIVERSIDE, Calif., June 1, 2007 -- A beam of light has been used to change the weak attraction between close objects, making the remote operation of micromachines a possibility.
A research team led by Umar Mohideen, a physicist and physics professor at the University of California, Riverside, demonstrated in the laboratory that the Casimir force -- the small attractive force that acts between two close parallel uncharged conducting plates -- can be changed using a beam of light, which could lead to the remote operation of...