Gold Nanorods Cancer Treatment, The small size of the gold nanorods (around 10–100 nm) coupled with the fact that they can easily be functionalized means that these structures are promising as drug-delivery vehicles. Near-infrared laser irradiation-triggered drug release is especially attractive because biological tissue is transparent to light at these wavelengths (around 800–1200 nm) and gold nanorods can easily be made to absorb in this region of the electromagnetic spectrum.