Editing Sonic screwdriver (section)

== Functions ==
{{Original research section|date=January 2018}}
The functions of a sonic screwdriver are based on its power over sound waves, radiation, wavelengths, frequencies, signals, and electromagnetism. It is shown to hack, disable, activate, and otherwise control technology from almost everything, allowing it to remotely control almost any machinery, mechanisms, and computers it is applied to, allowing it to open locks, detonate explosives, remotely activate electronics, override most systems, activate computers, and cause some energy weapons to burst into flames or sparks. There is technology the sonic is unable to interface with, such as wood, or the isomorphic controls seen in "A Christmas Carol". It also is capable of causing chemical reactions that allow the Doctor to turn eyeglass lenses black like sunglasses and causing cut barbed wire to regenerate (setting 2428B). It is also capable of detecting, amplifying and controlling certain energies, sound, signals, frequencies, and waves, allowing the Doctor to intercept a teleporting individual and send them where he chooses, scan and identify matter, send out communications, enhance sounds, signals, and frequencies, and acting as a catalyst or conduit for energies. Sonics are also capable of calculations, such as ''[[The Day of the Doctor]]'' (2013), when the [[War Doctor]] used calculations to allow the sonic to work on wood, the calculations of which appeared partly done on the Tenth Doctor's sonic and completed in the Eleventh's. The War Doctor also used his sonic in tandem with the Tenth and Eleventh's to create a force field wave to repel a Dalek.

These are more specific functions of the sonic screwdriver:
* Unlocking or locking a door
* Burning or cutting certain substances
* Remotely detonating specific machines or explosives
* Amplifying sound waves and the power of an X-ray machine beyond its normal capacities
* Disarming weapons and electronics
* [[Flashlight]]
* Intercepting and conducting teleportation
* Hacking an [[automated teller machine|ATM]]
* Regenerating barbed wire on a fence
* Darkening eyeglass lenses to transform them into sunglasses
* [[Microphone]] (when connected to an audio amplifier)
* Detecting and interpreting signals
* Conducting medical scans
* Fixing
* Locking the coordinates of the TARDIS
* Tracking alien life
* Using red setting or dampers
* Controlling the properties of atoms and molecules on a small scale
* Operating computers, whether their origin is alien or human
* Providing [[geolocation]]
* Lighting [[candle]]s
* Creating a force field wave with two (or possibly more) other sonics to physically repel a Dalek (it may have to be the same sonic device at different points in its own time stream)
* Modifying a mobile phone
* Disclosing and deactivating camouflage
* Disarming robotics
* Scanning and classifying matter
* Shattering glass
* Creating an "acoustic corridor" for speaking with someone far away
* Shocking neural centers of living organisms
* Downloading a person's consciousness and transferring it into a computer hard drive (only seen in a special model created by The Doctor as a gift to [[River Song (Doctor Who)|River Song]])
* Triggering particular protocols of the TARDIS
* Tightening and loosening screws
* Resonating concrete
* Creating glass-like walls ("Force Field")
* Creating holographic screens
* Reconstructing the TARDIS 
* Hijacking traffic lights
* Creating a field that silences all noise

Aside from being a tool, the sonic screwdriver can be used and considered as a defensive weapon, which is effective for a few types of assault weapons, but not designed to kill or injure living things as the only way it can really hurt or incapacitate an organism is by emitting painful bursts of sound, or, as of "[[Day of the Moon]]" (2011) by blasting a green wave of energy to incapacitate a target, though only the Eleventh and Twelfth's sonic has been shown to do the latter.