Optical trap technology puts us one step closer to real-life lightsabers

YouTube YouTube
Watch On

If you thought bagging one of the best graphics cards was difficult, questing for a Kyber crystal is totally unthinkable. But fear not. Where previously, such a pursuit would require you to evidence immense Jedi skills through a series of ridiculous tests, researchers are now one step closer to manufacturing real-life lightsabers with the dawn of particle suspending, holographic technology.

Ok, so currently they have only teeny weeny lightsaber examples to show, and they can't slice through anything… yet. But something quite stunning has been achieved here, so bare with me.

Dan Smalley, a professor of electrical engineering at Brigham Young University, is heading one of the most exciting holographic research projects of our age. Funded by a National Science Foundation CAREER grant, his team have birthed 'optical trap technology.' It gives researchers the ability to trap tiny particles in the air with a laser beam, and by dragging the particle around just fast enough, an image can be drawn in the air (via Pys.org). 

It's sort of like when you try to write your name with a sparkler, but a thousand times faster, and way cooler.

This isn't completely new technology either, but a new twist on what the team had already achieved three years prior. Back then, it was possible to draw free-floating objects in space with light, though it was necessary to take long exposure pictures in order to capture the final image, as they were rastered out slowly in physical space. 

Screen queens

(Image credit: Future)

Best gaming monitor: pixel-perfect panels for your PC
Best high refresh rate monitor: screaming quick screens
Best 4K monitor for gaming: when only high-res will do
Best 4K TV for gaming: big-screen 4K PC gaming

Now though, real time animations have been achieved, and they can actually interact with 3D objects. The results are light-based stick figures walking on human fingers, and photon torpedo animations crashing against tiny model starships. All of which can be seen with the naked eye—no CGI or space-age goggles necessary.

And without the need for a screen, this research surpasses current holographic techniques. As graduate student researcher Wesley Rogers explains, by using motion parallax tricks that involve tracking and adjusting the image as the viewer moves around the display, they can "create the illusion of a much deeper display. Up to, theoretically, an infinite sized display."

Just imagine the possibilities.

Katie Wickens
Hardware Writer

Screw sports, Katie would rather watch Intel, AMD and Nvidia go at it. Having been obsessed with computers and graphics for three long decades, she took Game Art and Design up to Masters level at uni, and has been rambling about games, tech and science—rather sarcastically—for four years since. She can be found admiring technological advancements, scrambling for scintillating Raspberry Pi projects, preaching cybersecurity awareness, sighing over semiconductors, and gawping at the latest GPU upgrades. Right now she's waiting patiently for her chance to upload her consciousness into the cloud.

Read more
A promotional image showing a man in a white shirt happily playing a game on a Samsung Odyssey 3D monitor
Samsung is working with a studio to 'create an immersive 3D gaming experience without the need for 3D glasses' using its fancy eyeball-tracking gaming monitor
A close-up photo of a monitor displaying the Windows 11 start icon, with the screen's pixels clearly visible
You don't need an RTX 5090 or a 4K monitor for gaming when you can play Snake on your monitor's subpixels. But you will need a microscope or a good macro lens
A scientist looking into a microscope
Japanese boffins invent the 'world's smallest shooting game' by using an electron beam to blast particles one billionth of a metre in size
DIY Perks TV and projector
This DIY 'infinite contrast' screen uses an old projector in a seriously clever way and makes monitors with full-array dimming look like absolute garbage
A display at CES 2025 showing several huge transparent screens mounted and motorised around a chandelier, lit up in purple.
Even I was impressed by LG's gigantic transparent OLED chandelier of hopes and dreams, but I'm still not buying one
An artist’s illustration of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope revealing, in the infrared, a population of small main-belt asteroids.
GPUs powering AI will probably be the end of us all but at least they're being used to find small city smashing asteroids before they do
Latest in Lighting
Neewer key lights on a blue background with Black Friday Deals text in top right.
I find two key lights are much better than one for evenly lighting a stream or shoot, and here's a set from Neewer that's nearly buy one, get one free for Black Friday
Govee Wall Light on a blue background.
As if I needed any more RGB lights, this Govee x Evangelion light kit we gave a 91% is still $60 off for Cyber Monday
Nanoleaf 4D Screen Mirroring kit set up on a gaming monitor.
Nanoleaf 4D Screen Mirror Kit review
Govee's AI Sync Box Kit 2 set up on a gaming monitor.
Govee AI Sync Box Kit 2 review
The Elgato Light Strip Pro in the box and with lighting enabled.
Elgato Light Strip Pro review
The Govee x Evangelion lighting kits set up on a wall and around a desk and drum kit with various RGB lighting modes enabled.
Govee x Evangelion gaming light kits review
Latest in News
Staring eyes in a face covered in oil
Death Stranding 2's PS5 release date is in June, let's hope it doesn't take eight months to hit PC this time
An evil-looking demon with red eyes and horns
You can theoretically beat Doom: The Dark Ages without using a gun, but 'You'd have a hard time, that's for sure,' says the game's director
Official Doom Guy art superimposed over Vault 666 Fallout-themed background.
Fallout-themed Doom mod Vault 666 has multiple endings, an OP Dogmeat companion, and a Ron Perlman-impersonating narrator so good, I was worried it was AI-generated at first
The Doomslayer in armor
Doom: The Dark Ages won't end with the Slayer in a coffin waiting for the start of Doom 2016: 'That would mean that we couldn't tell any more medieval stories'
Path of Exile 2 showing the Warbringer ascendancy class bludgeoning his way through a pack of hyenas
Path of Exile 2 speedrunner dominates official race with the game's 'worst' class
Atomfall screenshot
Rebellion CEO puts the studio's recent avoidance of layoffs down to control of scope and cost: 'Sometimes we say, guys, this game's too big'