Its diameter allows easy penetration of cell walls in order to deliver organic matter or fluorescent quantum dots into the cytoplasm or the nucleus.
[2] The University of California, Berkeley in 2008 produced gallium arsenide (GaAs) nanoneedles which emit extremely bright light, though not yet lasers, when optically pumped.
Such AFM arrays, besides producing near-atomic resolution images of surfaces, could lead to new forms of data storage by direct manipulation of atoms.
The coloured porous needles are constructed to biodegrade over a predictable period, and have a surface area 120 times that of equivalent solid wires, making them useful as drug-delivery vehicles.
"The ability to manipulate nanometer-scale materials at the molecular level holds the promise of conferring specificity of cellular delivery and the reduction of collateral nuisance injury to neighboring cells.