One potential application of nanorods is in display technologies, because the reflectivity of the rods can be changed by changing their orientation with an applied electric field. Another application is for microelectromechanical systems (MEMS). Nanorods, along with other noble metal nanoparticles, also function as theragnostic agents. Nanorods absorb in the near IR, and generate heat when excited with IR light. This property has led to the use of nanorods as cancer therapeutics. Nanorods can be conjugated with tumor targeting motifs and ingested. When a patient is exposed to IR light (which passes through body tissue), nanorods selectively taken up by tumor cells are locally heated, destroying only the cancerous tissue while leaving healthy cells intact.