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4 results for “surface plasmon resonance” in Science
Science · 8 August 2026
The Metal That Went Medical
…you had a virus. · Gold nanoparticles are red because collective electron oscillations — surface plasmons — absorb green light at around 520 nanometres. · The colour is size-dependent and aggregation-sensitive, which is what makes the particles usable as a readout rather than ju…
Amara Okonjo · 19 min read
Science · 9 August 2026
The Metallurgy of Karat
…ngle piece. It will be about fire scale, the dark copper-oxide layer that forms under the surface of copper-rich alloys during soldering and only reveals itself halfway through the final polish. · These are the properties that determine whether a design can be executed at all, an…
Tomas Herrera · 17 min read
Science · 3 November 2026
Made, Not Mined: Synthetic Gold and the Future of the Global Gold Trade
…en. Gold-plated or gold-filled items are base metal with a thin layer of real gold on the surface. And so-called 'lab-grown gold' in jewellery advertising is, almost always, simply recycled gold that has been refined in a laboratory setting and given a modern-sounding label. None…
Tomas Herrera · 25 min read
Science · 10 August 2026
Where Gold Actually Comes From
…uch gold is in the Earth's core? Enough, by most estimates, to plate the entire planetary surface several metres deep — and utterly inaccessible. Gold is siderophile, meaning it dissolves preferentially into molten iron, so during core formation it followed the iron downwards and…
Tomas Herrera · 17 min read
