Acoustics: Motion controlled by sound.

Abstract

A simple technique has been developed that produces holograms made of sound waves. These acoustic landscapes are used to manipulate microscale objects, and offer great potential in medical imaging and selective heating. See Letter p.518 Sound, especially ultrasound, can be used for contactless manipulation of objects in liquid and air, a phenomenon with applications in medical imaging, non-destructive testing and metrology. Usually, the desired sound field is shaped with arrays of transducers that must be carefully connected and controlled. Here Peer Fischer and colleagues describe a relatively simple technique for creating acoustic holograms and demonstrate their potential for use in matter manipulation. The acoustic holograms are encoded in a polymer plate by 3D printing and then used to shape a sound field that can be used for contactless manipulation of objects. The method can produce complex fields with reconstruction degrees of freedom two orders of magnitude greater than existing approaches. Because the holograms are inexpensive and fast to make, the method could be widely adopted to enable new applications with ultrasound manipulation.