Gold is best known for its shine and value, but in modern science it is also an important high-tech material.
New research shows that by reshaping gold at an extremely small scale, scientists can dramatically change how it behaves—especially how it interacts with light and how its electrons respond to energy.
The study, led by researchers at Umeå University and published in Nature Communications, reveals how structure alone can give gold entirely new electronic and optical abilities.
Gold already plays a key role in advanced technologies because it conducts electricity well, resists corrosion, and interacts strongly with light.
What this research shows is that these properties are not fixed.
By changing gold’s physical shape—its morphology—scientists can push its performance far beyond what solid gold can do.
The team focused on a special form of gold known as nanoporous gold. Instead of being smooth and solid, this material looks more like a sponge under a microscope, with tiny pores and channels throughout.
This structure is carefully made in the lab and turns gold into what scientists call a metamaterial, meaning its properties come more from its shape than from its chemical makeup.
When the researchers exposed thin films of nanoporous gold to extremely short laser pulses, they saw something remarkable.
The sponge-like gold absorbed far more light energy than ordinary gold and did so across a wider range of wavelengths. This extra absorbed energy was transferred to the electrons inside the material, making them much more energetic.
In practical terms, the electrons in nanoporous gold heated up to an estimated temperature of about 3,200 kelvin, or roughly 2,900 degrees Celsius.
Under the same conditions, electrons in normal gold only reached about 800 kelvin. Even more interesting, the “hot” electrons in nanoporous gold took longer to cool down, meaning the energetic state lasted longer and could potentially be used for useful processes.
According to the researchers, these extreme electronic conditions allow light-driven effects that would normally be very difficult or even impossible to achieve.
Using advanced imaging and spectroscopy tools, the team confirmed that these changes were not caused by any alteration in gold’s chemical or electronic structure. Instead, the effects came purely from the physical shape of the material.
This discovery points to a powerful new way of designing advanced materials. By adjusting how much gold and air are present in the nanoporous structure, scientists can fine-tune how electrons behave. This could improve the efficiency of chemical reactions used in technologies such as hydrogen production or carbon capture.
More broadly, the study suggests that structure itself can be treated as a design tool.
In the future, reshaping materials at the nanoscale could help scientists create smarter, more efficient systems for energy harvesting, catalysis, medicine, and even emerging technologies like quantum batteries. In this new view of materials science, shape matters just as much as substance—and sometimes even more.
