GoKawiilWorking at the nanoscale lets researchers tap into unusual physical behaviours and material properties that can underpin more powerful and efficient technologies and systems. But studying and manipulating materials at this scale presents many challenges. Nanomaterials can be extremely delicate, for instance, and often need specialized methods to process and integrate them into devices.
These three researchers, who work in nanoscience and nanotechnology in research institutions around the world, are exploring these obstacles and more, with the aim of applying nanomaterials to advance energy technologies, imaging tools and electronic systems.
PRISCILA VENSAUS: Golden touch
Credit: Paddy Mills
The use of nanomaterials to improve clean-energy production is still a relatively new research area, but Priscila Vensaus sees great promise in it. Gold nanoparticles, for example, could take solar-panel technology to the next level, she says, thanks to the unique properties that occur at a such a small scale.
When gold is broken down into extremely small particles, or formed from gold-based chemical salts, it behaves differently from bulk gold. Instead of being an unreactive yellow metal that reflects light, it becomes a highly reactive material that absorbs light. This shift occurs because, at the nanoscale, electrons in gold particles oscillate collectively in response to light, causing the particles to absorb and scatter specific wavelengths depending on their size and shape.
Nature Index 2026 Nanoscience and nanotechnology
Vensaus, who studies the use of gold nanoparticles in clean energy technologies at the Laboratory of Nanoscience for Energy Technologies at the Swiss Federal Technology Institute of Lausanne (EPFL), says that solar panels embedded with thousands of gold nanoparticles “can absorb parts of the solar spectrum that other materials cannot”.
By acting like microscopic antennas that capture and redirect light, the nanoparticles can enhance overall light absorption, potentially improving the system’s efficiency and allowing the panels to generate more electricity even under weaker sunlight1.
Vensaus is also investigating how nanomaterials can reduce the electricity required for electrolysis — the process of splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen that underpins hydrogen production for fuel cells — enabling it to run on renewables rather than fossil-fuel energy.
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