A team at Leicester University is developing a new way of making nanoparticles, microscopic particles often used in electronics and medicine. The discovery was made by Andrew Ellis and Shengfu Yang in the department of chemistry, and they are working with Chris Binns and Klaus von Haeften in the department of physics to develop a technique using droplets of superfluid liquid helium to grow, layer by layer, nanoparticles that cannot be formed in any other way. The new classes of nanoparticles could have "extraordinary applications", the university said.