{"id":8338,"date":"2026-04-28T08:48:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-28T08:48:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news678.top\/?p=8338"},"modified":"2026-04-28T08:48:00","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T08:48:00","slug":"ultrasonic-levitation-but-with-a-twist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news678.top\/?p=8338","title":{"rendered":"Ultrasonic Levitation, But With a Twist"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/images.techeblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/28010151\/ultrasonic-levitation-experiment.jpg\" alt=\"Ultrasonic Levitation Experiment\" width=\"960\" height=\"640\"\/><br \/>Steve Mould was the most recent person to get his hands on a miniature arena in which minuscule disks appear to float across a surface as if by magic. In his most recent levitation experiment, most can\u2019t believe how easy it is to generate the type of motion you see, thanks to some rapid vibrations. Bob Collins just happened to come across the idea years ago while trying to figure out what was wrong with the guidance systems used on British torpedoes at the time.<\/p>\n<p><span id=\"more-241771\"\/><br \/><iframe title=\"A New Type of Levitation\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/BViIGAg-eVI?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><noscript><iframe title=\"A New Type of Levitation\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/BViIGAg-eVI?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/noscript><br \/>\nA glass lens sat atop an ultrasonic transducer and\u2026 did not remain put. Instead, it slid easily off, as one would expect. So he did some additional testing and discovered that if he achieved the appropriate frequency, the transducer will actually hover above any flat surface. He set a signal generator to around 30 kilohertz and then looked back in wonder as the component simply lifted and hovered above the surface, with nothing holding it aloft.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/images.techeblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/28010814\/ultrasonic-levitation-experiment-1.jpg\" alt=\"Ultrasonic Levitation Experiment\" width=\"1280\" height=\"720\"\/><br \/>\nIt all boils down to the extremely tiny layer of air trapped between the vibrating surface and the object on top of it. Every fast vibration compresses the air as it descends, driving some of it out through the diminishing gap. Surface drag and shrinking space slow it down far more than incoming air does on its journey back up. Over thousands of cycles per second, all that pressure accumulates and almost balances out the weight squeezing down from above. That all happens in an area of around 100 microns, which is narrow enough to be invisible to the naked eye but powerful enough to hold the weight.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/images.techeblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/28010819\/ultrasonic-levitation-experiment-2.jpg\" alt=\"Ultrasonic Levitation Experiment\" width=\"1280\" height=\"720\"\/><br \/>Steve decided to take this idea and make it a little more fun, so he installed a flat metal plate on top of several ultrasonic cleaning transducers and built a little wall around the edge to provide a play area. Acrylic discs were utilized as pucks. When the transducers were turned on, the entire plate began to vibrate, and each disk lifted slightly, allowing it to slide across with little friction. The problem was that a single transducer wasn\u2019t enough. The plate began to produce its own standing waves, and the disks became trapped in quiet regions where the motion cancelled itself out. Steve solved this problem by placing a transducer at each end of the plate and firing them out of phase by a quarter wavelength, resulting in constant motion all over the plate, giving the disks the freedom to move in any direction they wanted, with no dead spots to get in the way.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/images.techeblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/28010823\/ultrasonic-levitation-experiment-3.jpg\" alt=\"Ultrasonic Levitation Experiment\" width=\"1280\" height=\"720\"\/><br \/>Players used toothpicks to control little pucks since the entire system was small enough to fit on a desk. A handful of goals at opposing ends transformed the entire thing into a mini-game. Observers were treated to the sight of the small disks hovering and darting just like they would on a real air hockey table, but without the buzz of an air pump beneath. All you\u2019d hear were high frequency vibrations, which the human ear cannot detect. Factories are already utilizing this precise squeeze-film technology to move delicate silicon wafers around throughout the chip-making process, and the wafers simply float above their transport surface, never contacting anything that could scratch or dirty them. Steve\u2019s tabletop version demonstrates the same notion in a way that anyone can understand and appreciate.<br \/><span>\u201c[Source]<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p> Ultrasonic Levitation, But With a Twist<br \/>\n<br \/>#Ultrasonic #Levitation #Twist<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Steve Mould was the most recent person to get his hands on a miniature arena&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8339,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[7313,2867,7312],"class_list":["post-8338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tech","tag-levitation","tag-twist","tag-ultrasonic"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/news678.top\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/ultrasonic-levitation-experiment.jpg",960,640,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/news678.top\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/ultrasonic-levitation-experiment-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/news678.top\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/ultrasonic-levitation-experiment-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/news678.top\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/ultrasonic-levitation-experiment-768x512.jpg",640,427,true],"large":["https:\/\/news678.top\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/ultrasonic-levitation-experiment.jpg",640,427,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/news678.top\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/ultrasonic-levitation-experiment.jpg",960,640,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/news678.top\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/ultrasonic-levitation-experiment.jpg",960,640,false],"covernews-featured":["https:\/\/news678.top\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/ultrasonic-levitation-experiment.jpg",960,640,false],"covernews-medium":["https:\/\/news678.top\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/ultrasonic-levitation-experiment-540x340.jpg",540,340,true]},"author_info":{"display_name":"admin","author_link":"https:\/\/news678.top\/?author=1"},"category_info":"<a href=\"https:\/\/news678.top\/?cat=8\" rel=\"category\">Tech<\/a>","tag_info":"Tech","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news678.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news678.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news678.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news678.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news678.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8338"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news678.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8338\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news678.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news678.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news678.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news678.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}