Photo: zeevveez/Flickr CC

Hebrew University researchers in Israel have created Star of David-shaped, hexagonal “nano-cages,” which help make chemical sensors more sensitive than other materials have:

The researchers generated a three-dimensional image of the tiny nanoparticles using a powerful electron microscope and found that the Stars of David are, remarkably, “nano-cages.” The particles are nano-sized, hexagonal crystals, each with a tiny metal frame wrapping around and encasing them just like a bird’s cage, but 100 million times smaller. Because the nano-cage is hexagonal, when looking at pictures of them from above, they appear as Stars of David. No one had ever seen hybrid nanoparticles form with such a cage structure before.

via New nanomaterial, shaped like Stars of David, discovered at Hebrew University.