Laser tripod may lift mirror

Guest post by Andrew Grant

The pressure exerted by three weak laser beams could hold up a small mirror. The laser tripod would levitate a 2-millimeter-wide mirror and stabilize it so that it barely vibrates, physicists propose October 29 in Physical Review Letters.

In the future researchers could use this type of carefully crafted laser-levitation system to detect subtle gravitational forces, which are difficult to measure at very small scales.