Monday, 12th March 2007 (3316 views)

Tiny building blocks made of gold are able to fashion themselves into ring shapes, according to a new study.

Scientists at Rice University have found this new chemistry-related discovery which may one day lead to applications such as highly sensitive optical sensors or even super lenses for use in the military.

The ring-shaped superstructures are made spontaneously by gold nanorods, which are about 1,000 times smaller than a human hair. The nanorods are placed in chloroform where this remarkable transformation into rings takes place.

Eugene Zubarev, the Norman Hackerman-Welch Young Investigator leading the study, said: "When nanorods are organized into a ring, significant changes in their optical and electromagnetic properties occur.

"These can have technological applications in the area of metamaterials, which have enormous potential in opto-electronics, communications and military applications."

He explained that finding new ways to assemble nano-objects into bigger structures is important because the properties of the objects depend on the arrangement of the tiny building blocks.

The exciting discovery will now be published in the 19th March edition of chemistry magazine Angewandte Chemie.

 

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