In 1897 Wood was the first to observe field emission, charged particles emitted from a conductor in an electric field. This electrical phenomenon is used in the field-emission microscope for studying atomic structure. From 1901 he was at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md., as professor and, later, research professor of experimental physics. In addition to his fundamental discoveries in physical optics, he introduced improvements in the ruling of closely spaced lines in diffraction gratings and in other spectrometric methods used in astronomical studies. Wood also made important contributions to the fields of supersonics and biophysics. His publications include Physical Optics (1905) and a book of nonsense verse, How To Tell the Birds from the Flowers (1907).