One of the world’s leading research institutes, Stanford University, has uncovered a new behavior that electrons exhibit. Collective electron oscillations, known as plasmons, were found to exhibit a certain resonance even at a tiny scale. The researchers are hoping to apply the discovery to finely targeted cancer treatments among other things. Although the behavior was known to happen on a larger scale, the experiments found that plasmons exist in smaller particles and can function in metal particles “as small as 1 nanometer in diameter, about 100 atoms in total.” Because this phenomenon applies to electrons as well as photons, there are applications like using light to burn away cancer cells, new types of optics as well as hydrolysis (splitting up water into hydrogen and O2) and even artificial photosynthesis. - Eric from Bookmarklet