Latest News articles

Sign-up benefits

Unlimited site access

Newswire

Sign up to receive a newswire from nanotechweb.org and get the latest research and industry news delivered directly to your desk.

Free company listing

List your company on nanotechweb.org free of charge, or become a Corporate Partner and take advantage of the enhanced benefits that this status offers. Make sure that potential customers can find the products that you sell.

Post your new products online

If you have a new product to promote and you want to tell people about it, post it on nanotechweb.org. List your product free of charge or upgrade to Star Product status and benefit from guaranteed homepage exposure for one week.

Have your say

Sign up and get the opportunity to comment on our stories. We are always interested in your opinion and will be looking for your feedback.

Running an event?

Our events listing is free so, if you are organizing an event, post it on nanotechweb.org.

Technology update

Apr 7, 2008

Silver doesn't always shine

Physicists from France may have solved a long standing mystery: why do some almost flat metallic films absorb an abnormal amount of light? Pascal Quémerais and colleagues of the Institut Néel, CNRS and Joseph Fourier University in Grenoble, say that it is because the films are rough on the nanoscale and contain grooves just a few nanometres wide and deep that absorb nearly all of the light falling on them. As well as being fundamentally important, the result means that such films could be used to design nanostructured surfaces with predefined absorption properties. These could find use in applications like active surfaces for spectroscopic measurements and in miniature sensors.

We hope you've enjoyed the short summary of this article. To continue reading, and for unlimited access to all content on this site you will need to complete a short sign-up process. It's free of charge, and will only take a couple of minutes of your time. If you've signed up before, simply sign in below.