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Monday, 14th November 2005 (5664 views)

The ancient riddle of how gold colours glass has been solved and could help to build nanophotonic components.

When gold is incorporated into glass it creates a plethora of colours upon heating, a decorative feature that artisans have exploited since Roman times.

Now K Rademann and M Eichelbaum, in collaboration with the German Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing, have released their research into the phenomenon.

The scientists irradiated glasses containing gold trichloride, causing the trivalent gold ions to change into elemental gold and thereby produce a brown colouration.

Upon heating, the gold produced a red colour, inline with the expected reaction for gold clusters with a radius of between three and six nanometres.

The researchers concluded that, after gold particles have been activated with light, heating controls their size enabling their plasmon oscillation to be manipulated.

The ability to control their oscillation could help in the development of nanophotonic components such as optoelectronic circuits and optical storage devices.

 

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