Johns Hopkins researchers have devised a way to use a brief burst of electricity to release biomolecules and nanoparticles from a tiny gold launch pad. The technique could someday be used to dispense small amounts of medicine on command from a chip implanted in the body. The method also may be useful in chemical reactions that require the controlled release of extremely small quantities of a material.

Using nanometre scale analysis techniques and quantities too small to explode, researchers have mapped the temperature and length-sale factors that make energetic materials—otherwise known as explosives—behave the way they do.

Lock one or more molecules up within a cage of nanometre dimensions. Take this “nanocontainer” to the desired spot and free the molecules. Or keep them locked up for a while and introduce other molecules into the container, for chemical reactions inside. By using polymers containing iron, it is possible to make intelligent containers of which the access of molecules can be regulated in a chemical way. A research team led by Professor Julius Vancso of the MESA+ Institute for Nanotechnology has succeeded in fabricating these nanocontainers. The scientists foresee exciting applications in, for example, medicine, in adding additives to food or in ultrafast reactions in nano chemistry. They present their results in the September issue of Nature Materials.

Nanoscientists have transformed a molecule of chlorophyll-a from spinach into a complex biological switch that has possible future applications for green energy, technology and medicine.