The researchers at the University of Glasgow were able to take a beam of light and twist it like a corkscrew using special polarising filters.
This was then shone onto a specially-shaped piece of gold to create the world's first "super twisting" effect. The light can be used to detect illnesses using tiny samples of blood or other biological material.
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Hide AdIt means that rather than taking a large blood sample using a needle, doctors could test blood using a pin prick and a smaller amount of blood.
Until now, the idea of super-twisted light has been just a theory among scientists, before it was created by the team in Glasgow, whose work is reported in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.