See that small green dot there? It is a fragment of diamond being held in the air by a laser beam.
Physicists in Australia have become the first researchers to levitate a macroscopic object using lasers. The physicists used three lasers to form a levitational “tripod” that could hold a small mirror in free space. Beyond the inherent awesomeness of optical levitation, the physicists believe that the setup could be used as an incredibly accurate sensor for fickle forces such as gravity, and perhaps ameliorating the greatest contradiction of them all: quantum mechanics vs. general relativity.
Read More at : http://arxiv-web3.library.cornell.edu/abs/1307.1175
