Maneuvering external magnets, scientists can command the direction in which light bounces off tiny, magnetic wires that sway like matchsticks in thick, slow-moving solutions.
Announcing her finding at the 229th meeting of the American Chemical Society, University of Wisconsin-Madison materials chemist Anne Bentley described how suspended nickel wires - each 200 times thinner than a human hair - could one day serve as magneto-optical switches. The switches could aid in fields such as photonics, where light, rather than electricity, relays information.