The molecular pressure cooker

New method for producing nanostructures from molecules

20-Feb-2025 - Basic research in a research museum: a team of nanoscientists in the laboratories of the Deutsches Museum has developed a new method for producing stable molecular nanostructures on inert surfaces. The results of this work have now been published in the journal Angewandte Chemie International ...

World's first optical atomic clock with highly charged ions

Scientists of the QUEST Institute at PTB have realized and evaluated a new type of optical atomic clock

08-Nov-2022 - Optical atomic clocks are the most accurate measuring instruments ever built and are becoming key tools for basic and applied research, for example to test the constancy of natural constants or for height measurements in geodesy. Now, researchers at the QUEST Institute at the ...

New mechanisms discovered to separate air

05-Jun-2018 - Unlike the windows of your house, nanoscale holes in graphene (named as "nanowindows") can selectively choose which type of air molecules can pass through. Scientists from Shinshu University and PSL University, France, theoretically proved concerted motion of the nanowindow-rim to selectively ...

A thermometer for the oceans

Measurement of noble gases in Antarctic ice cores

08-Jan-2018 - The average sea temperature is an essential parameter of the global climate – but it is very difficult to measure. At least until now, because an international team of researchers including Empa scientists have now developed a novel method using the concentration of noble gases in the eternal ...

Gas gives laser-induced graphene super properties

18-May-2017 - Rice University scientists who invented laser-induced graphene (LIG) for applications like supercapacitors have now figured out a way to make the spongy graphene either superhydrophobic or superhydrophilic. And it's a gas. Until recently, the Rice lab of James Tour made LIG only in open air, ...

Argon is not the 'dope' for metallic hydrogen

27-Mar-2017 - Hydrogen is both the simplest and the most-abundant element in the universe, so studying it can teach scientists about the essence of matter. And yet there are still many hydrogen secrets to unlock, including how best to force it into a superconductive, metallic state with no electrical ...

Physicists Measure van der Waals Forces of Individual Atoms for the First Time

17-May-2016 - Physicists at the Swiss Nanoscience Institute and the University of Basel have succeeded in measuring the very weak van der Waals forces between individual atoms for the first time. To do this, they fixed individual noble gas atoms within a molecular network and determined the interactions with a ...

Rosetta’s mass spectrometer ROSINA detected argon at comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko

29-Sep-2015 - The mass-spectrometer ROSINA on ESA’s comet probe Rosetta has for the first time detected the noble gas argon in the coma of 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. This measurement adds to the debate about the role of comets in delivering various «ingredients» to Earthsuch as water. Comets are considered to ...

Help in the Search for the Needle in the Haystack

Physicists render usable method for detecting extremely rare inert gas isotopes for water dating

17-Oct-2014 - In the earth and environmental sciences, radioactive isotopes, atom variants that decay over time, play a major role in age determination. A radioactive isotope of the inert gas argon (39Ar), for example, is used to determine the age of water or ice. Such isotopes are extremely rare, however – ...

Carbon nanotube fibers outperform copper

Tests show bundles beat traditional cables for transmitting electricity

18-Feb-2014 - On a pound-per-pound basis, carbon nanotube-based fibers invented at Rice University have greater capacity to carry electrical current than copper cables of the same mass, according to new research. While individual nanotubes are capable of transmitting nearly 1,000 times more current than ...