It appears that researchers from Harvard have added another notch to nano-scale engineering. Headed by professor Robert L. Wallace from Harvard's School of Applied Physics, graduate students Nanfang Yu, Ertugrul Cubukcu, and Federico Capasso created a Quantum Cascade Laser Nanoantenna, a device that would not only contribute to biology, chemistry and medicine, but also begin to replace resolution-limited infrared microscopes for substance analysis.

The nanoantenna, a technological feat brought about by nanofabrication, permits the light from a quantum cascade laser to pass through a nano-gap between two gold rods. The light is at the frequency of where most materials leave their absorption prints, and the light itself is at least 500 times smaller than the laser's original size.

This allows it to peer into really tiny particles such as cells, and determine the make up of the cellular body. The nanoantenna also makes the device scan minute particles with incredible resolution, compared to that of infrared microscopes available commercially today.

"There's currently a major push to develop powerful tabletop microscopes with spatial resolution much smaller than the wavelength that can provide images of materials, and in particular biological specimens, with chemical information on a nanometric scale," said Capasso. And it appears that the quantum cascade laser nanoantenna fits the bill quite comfortably.