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Nanotechnology

Colourful particles for spectrometry

Nature volume 523, pages 39–40 (2015)Cite this article

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A smartphone camera, patterned with arrays of filters made from colloidal suspensions of coloured particles, has been transformed into a powerful tool for spectral analysis. See Letter p.67

In 1857, Michael Faraday gave a well-attended lecture at the Royal Institution of Great Britain, during which he presented his pioneering experimental work on the interaction of light with matter1. Faraday's study probed the fundamental properties of light related to its reflection and absorption by progressively smaller particles. During the presentation, very fine gold particles dispersed in liquid were shown to produce vivid colours not seen with larger particles. Faraday did not know that he had created suspensions of particles now known as colloidal quantum dots (CQDs), but, guided by insight, he concluded that the distinct colours were due to the minute sizes of the gold grains. On page 67 of this issue, Bao and Bawendi2 describe how they have exploited the unique optical properties of CQDs to develop a compact optical spectrometer that could be integrated with a smartphone camera or used as a miniature, hand-held sensing tool.

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Figure 1: Colloidal quantum dots.

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References

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  1. Norm C. Anheier is at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, Washington 99352, USA.,

    Norm C. Anheier

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  1. Norm C. Anheier
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Correspondence to Norm C. Anheier.

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Anheier, N. Colourful particles for spectrometry. Nature 523, 39–40 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/523039a

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