A form of matter held together by nothing more substantial than light has been created by physicists in the UK.

The method, known as "optical binding", was used to glue together about 100 polystyrene beads – each 400-nanometres in diameter – in a flat two-dimensional structure.

Colin Bain from the University of Durham and Christopher Mellor from the National Institute for Medical Research say the phenomenon might one day provide a simple way to construct, or reconfigure, nanoscale structures.

"It is an entirely new way of making regular nanostructures," Bain told New Scientist. He adds that changing the parameters of the laser used, or the shape of the particles, could generate very different types of structure. "It's a possible way of making much more complicated patterns," he says. "But we really don't understand the basic physics well enough."

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