Scientists at the University of California, Berkeley have grown gallium-arsenide structures into the shape of narrow needles which, when optically pumped, emit light with high brightness.

In addition to optoelectronic devices, the needles could be valuable in such applications as atomic force microscopy (AFM), where the sharp tips can be grown in arrays without further etching or processing steps.

Some believe that AFM arrays, besides speeding up the recording of nearly atomic-resolution images of surfaces (allowing one to create atomic movies), might be used to create a new form of data storage by influencing the atoms in the sample.