Nanoswitches Toggled by Light

Microscopic fissures in a tiny crystal open and close—on command. Researchers led by Ahmed H. Zewail successfully used ultrafast electron microscopy (UEM) to observe nanoscopic structures at their “exercises”, as they report in the journal Angewandte Chemie. Such switchable nanochannels could be useful for future nanoelectronics and nanoscopic “machines”.