Heartbeat of nanoparticles made visible
Wednesday, June 1, 2011 - 16:30
in Physics & Chemistry
Even tiny gold nanoparticles, with a diameter of only 40 millionths of a millimeter, have something like a heartbeat. When focusing a short laser pulse on the particles they heat up very briefly and start to vibrate. But even the best microscopes can not resolve these nanoparticles, which are therefore very difficult to study.