Researchers have found ways to use electricity to coax microscopic amounts of plastic to form patterns containing columns and tubes with features as small as 100 nanometers.

The method could be used for plastic electronics, light-emitting diodes, solar energy devices, and optical filters,

The different plastics react to an electric field at distinctly different rates, making one plastic melt before another. The researchers were able to use this interplay between two types of plastic to make smaller features.