Aug 19, 2020
Metamaterials Generate Gecko-Like Adhesive Force
Posted by Quinn Sena in category: materials
Circa 2012
Back in 1871, James Clerk Maxwell predicted that light exerts a force on any surface it hits. This radiation pressure was experimentally discovered some 30 years later and has since emerged as a hugely important force that is now exploited in systems such as solar sails and laser cooling.
Today, John Zhang and buddies at the University of Southampton in the UK go one better. These guys predict that a far more powerful optical force can exist between a metal or dielectric plate and a metamaterial, a substance with optical properties that have been engineered to control light in specific ways.
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