The manipulation of polymers and biological molecules or the control of chemical reactions on a nanometer scale by means of laser pulses shows great promise for applications in modern nanotechnology, biotechnology, molecular medicine or chemistry. A controllable, parallel, highly efficient and very local heat conversion of the incident laser light into metal nanoparticles without ablation or fragmentation provides the means for a tool like a 'nanoreactor', a 'nanowelder', a 'nanocrystallizer' or a 'nanodesorber'. In this paper we explain theoretically and show experimentally the interaction of laser radiation with gold nanoparticles on a polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) layer (one-photon excitation) by means of different laser pulse lengths, wavelengths and pulse repetition rates. To the best of our knowledge this is the first report showing the possibility of highly local (in a 40 nm range) regulated heat insertion into the nanoparticle and its surroundings without ablation of the gold nanoparticles. In an earlier paper we showed that near-infrared femtosecond irradiation can cut labeled DNA sequences in metaphase chromosomes below the diffraction-limited spot size. Now, we use gold as well as silver-enhanced gold nanoparticles on DNA (also within chromosomes) as energy coupling objects for femtosecond laser irradiation with single-and two-photon excitation. We show the results of highly localized destruction effects on DNA that occur only nearby the nanoparticles.

A metamaterial consisting of pairs of metallic nanowires, separated by a dielectric spacer, has been fabricated and spectrally characterized in the visible and near-infrared spectral domain. It is shown, that the structure exhibits both a plasmonic and a magnetic resonance depending on its geometry and orientation with respect to the illuminating wave field. In particular, we investigate the influence of the thickness of the spacer layer on the spectral position of the resonances and show that, for an appropriate adjustment, both resonances coincide. Measurements of the amplitude and the phase of the transmitted wave are presented. It is also shown that the material is highly anisotropic with respect to the angle of incidence, as the plasmonic resonance wavelength depends strongly on it whereas the magnetic resonance does not show this sensitivity. All experimental results are supported by numerical simulations