Gold bowties may shed light on molecules and other nano-sized objects

One of the great challenges in the field of nanotechnology is optical imaging--specifically, how to design a microscope that produces high-resolution images of the nano-sized objects that researchers are trying to study. For example, a typical DNA molecule is only about three nanometers wide--so tiny that the contours of its surface are obscured by light waves, which are hundreds of nanometers long.