Microscopic Eyes Are Shining

This may look like a tiny eye, but it is actually a sliver of gold less than half a millimeter across, embedded in a white latex ball.  Microscopic beads such as this could eventually be used in medicine and the detection of biological molecules.

Orlin Velev from North Carolina State University and colleagues have devised a clever way to make these eyeballs - and striped "billiard balls," as well - by manipulating fluids on a small chip packed with electrodes. 

When voltage is applied to the electrodes, fluid droplets hover over the chip, allowing the researchers to assemble tiny beads one droplet at a time.

"The eyeball and striped particles could be used in electronic paper and as bar-coded tags in biological and environmental research," Velev said, "as well as in advanced drug delivery and targeted therapeutics."

The research is described in the January edition of Nature Materials.

-- LiveScience Staff

Credit: Orlin Velev