We  all learned in science class that light beams travel in straight lines and spread through a process known as diffraction — and they can’t go around corners. But now researchers at Tel Aviv University are investigating new applications for their recent discovery that small beams of light can indeed be bent in a laboratory setting, diffracting much less than a “regular” beam.hese rays, called “Airy beams,” were named after English astronomer Sir George Biddell Airy, who studied the parabolic trajectories of light in rainbows, and were first created at the University of Central Florida. Now, the fortuitously-named Prof. Ady Arie and his graduate students Tal Ellenbogen, Noa Voloch-Bloch, Ayelet Ganany-Padowicz and Ido Dolev of Tel Aviv University’s Faculty of Engineering have demonstrated new ways to generate and control Airy beams.

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