Tiny metal structures carved at the billionth-of-a-metre scale can funnel light into spaces so small that researchers can now watch individual molecules and atoms moving in real time, and even use light to push them around. This matters because the behaviour of atoms and molecules inside batteries, sensors, and colour-changing materials has been largely invisible until now. Without being able to see or control these processes, engineers have had to design devices partly by guesswork. The research fills a fundamental gap: we do not yet understand what happens when molecules are squeezed into these light-filled nano-cavities, and that ignorance blocks progress in many technologies. If the work succeeds, it could improve how lithium ions move inside battery fragments—directly affecting how long batteries last and how much energy they store. It could also lead to walls that change colour on demand, or lorry sides that display text or images. More broadly, the programme aims to build reliable methods for constructing these nano-structures so that any lab can use them. This is primarily fundamental science, but understanding how light controls matter at the nanoscale will likely open up new technologies in healthcare, information technology, and energy production over the coming decades.
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We can use intricately controlled assemblies of metals carved into structures on the scale of a billionth of a metre, to funnel and concentrate light into tiny volumes of space. This 'nano-optics' allows us to access for the first time small numbers of molecules and atoms moving around in real time. Even more interesting we can start to use light to control the movement of molecules and atoms, since it can produce strong forces directly at the nanoscale. In this research, we plan to use our new-found ability to concentrate on a whole range of physical phenomena that underlie devices at the heart of healthcare, information technology, and energy production. For instance we can watch how lithium ions move into and out of a small fragment of battery, and how the deformations of the atomic lattice are produced, which is what determines how long batteries last and how much energy they can store. Another project uses light to move gold atoms around inside larger carbon-based molecules, to control what colour they absorb at, and what molecules they can sense. Further projects build wallpapers constructed from tiny flipping components that produce colour changes on demand, the precursor to walls that change colour at the flick of a switch or display images or text on the side of lorries. Underpinning all this are serious advances in learning how to build such structures reliably, so anyone can make use of our new ideas. We understand very little about what happens when we put molecules inside such compressed nano-cavities for light, and these fundamentals will open up new areas. This research also crucially helps us understand what new properties we can create, and predicts how to improve them best. This will lay open many of the new technologies of the next century.
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