"The goal of plasmonics is to “squeeze” light so that one can manipulate objects at the nanoscale, especially on the surface of metals. The reason metals conduct electricity is that electrons are loosely bound to metal atoms, so they can freely move along the surface of the metal lattice. The electricity flowing in the wires in your home represents the smooth flow of these loosely bound electrons on the metal surface. But under certain conditions, when a light beam collides with the metal surface, the electrons can vibrate in unison with the original light beam, creating wavelike motions of the electrons on the metal surface (called plasmons), and these wavelike motions beat in unison with the original light beam. More important, one can “squeeze” these plasmons so that they have the same frequency as the original beam (and hence carry the same information) but have a much smaller wavelength. In principle, one might then cram these squeezed waves onto nanowires. As with photonic crystals, the ultimate goal of plasmonics is to create computer chips that compute using light, rather than electricity."