Uses?
As of the time of making this
page, there are no practical uses of this
discovery. However, there are some ideas such as
micro-assembly. This can be used to handle
extremely small components and put them into
place without contact. Unlike a magnet it can be
used to levitate anything even without being a
magnetic material. The only limitation currently
is it's size, while the golf ball sized
Styrofoam ball being the only exception
currently all other forms of matter have to be a
diameter smaller than half the wavelength of the
acoustic wave it is immersed in.
A big field that is being
looked at to use this technique is chemical and
biological studies that involve a "zero-contact"
relationship with surfaces for accurate results.
This could be a huge development in the study of
chemical reactions which relied heavily of
buoyancy such as sodium and water. The chemicals
that can be reacted no longer have to be
magnetic to be levitated, thus enabling the
study of how transparent chemicals react with
each other.
Example of a Reaction Using Acoustic Levitation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dahgKTMdaFE