ERROR 1
ERROR 1
ERROR 2
ERROR 2
ERROR 2
ERROR 2
ERROR 2
Password and Confirm password must match.
If you have an ACS member number, please enter it here so we can link this account to your membership. (optional)
ERROR 2
ACS values your privacy. By submitting your information, you are gaining access to C&EN and subscribing to our weekly newsletter. We use the information you provide to make your reading experience better, and we will never sell your data to third party members.
This electron microscope image of hairy nanoparticles makes them look cute, but they can also be explosive. A team at the China Academy of Engineering Physics came up with a way to make gold nanorods with uniform size, and because the nanoparticles are so similar, they absorb the same wavelength of light, causing them to heat up simultaneously when exposed to an ultraviolet laser. The team followed that up by covering the nanorods with shells of silica, which look like coats of fur in this image. The silica is porous and good at absorbing small molecules, so the researchers impregnated the shells with a “high-energy compound,” aka an explosive. To make them ignite, they found, all it took was laser-heating the nanorods.
Credit: Yu Dai and Songhai Xie. Read the group’s recent paper in ACS Applied Nano Materials, DOI: 10.1021/acsanm.3c00714
Do science. Take pictures. Win money. Enter our photo contest here.
Join the conversation
Contact the reporter
Submit a Letter to the Editor for publication
Engage with us on X