Skittering water droplets spin sponges of gold

摘要

It's more of a gold fountain than a gold mine. Levitating drops of hot water have been used to fabricate intricate gold structures. Such drops could one day act as tiny factories for electrical and medical components. Cold nanoparticles have unique properties that are useful in medicine and electronics. But creating them usually requires toxic chemicals. "If I create my nanoparticle in some hazardous compound and later want to use it in a medical application, I have to worry about how toxic the particle itself is," says Mady Elbahri at the University of Kiel in Germany.