Also: acoustic tweezers, sound levitation, tractor beam
Sound waves can hold, move and spin tiny objects, from vesicles to whole small organisms, without touching them.
Uses proposed by researchers for this topic are listed on Potential uses.
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Ozcelik and colleagues reviewed acoustic tweezers, which use sound to trap, rotate, separate and pattern bioparticles from nanometre vesicles to millimetre organisms.
As reported in: Ozcelik, Rufo, Guo et al. (2018). Acoustic tweezers for the life sciences. Nature Methods. doi:10.1038/s41592-018-0222-9
Marzo and colleagues drove an ultrasonic phased array to levitate, move and rotate particles from one side, creating acoustic tweezers, twisters and bottles.
As reported in: Marzo, Seah, Drinkwater et al. (2015). Holographic acoustic elements for manipulation of levitated objects. Nature Communications. doi:10.1038/ncomms9661