Researchers at TU/e have demonstrated that energy transfer without loss via light or heat can occur over much greater distances than previously thought possible thanks to vibrations in microscopic gold rods. They succeeded in making energy jump from one particle to another over a distance of several millimeters without “spilling” energy along the way.

In the microscopic world in which this research takes place, that is a giant leap, with promising applications in quantum communication, solar energy, and ultrasensitive medical sensors. The researchers have published their findings in the journal Science Advances.

Normally, a molecule that absorbs energy loses it again as heat through vibrations passed on to the surrounding environment or as a particle of light (known as a photon). In Förster resonance energy transfer (or FRET for short, which is named after the German physicist Theodor Förster), something different happens: the energy jumps directly, without radiation, from one molecule to a specific neighboring molecule through an invisible interaction between their electric fields.