Federal Ministry supports start-up project on pioneering filter technology

Novel spectral filters will enable future sensors to work more accurately and reliably

30-Apr-2025 - A research team from the University of Cologne has secured 1.1 million euros for the PoLightFilters start-up project from the EXIST-FT funding programme of the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK). With the development of a fundamentally novel technology for light ...

Long-term super microscopy

Nanographenes enable longer observation times

03-Mar-2025 - The 2014 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded for the development of super-resolution fluorescence microscopy, including STED (stimulated emission depletion) microscopy. This method can be used to observe processes, e.g. in cells, with particularly high resolution. Researchers at the Max Planck ...

Unlocking the potential of lithium-sulfur batteries

Researchers develop electrolyte additives for enhanced energy storage: “Synchrotron techniques provide powerful tools for characterizing battery materials”

15-Jan-2025 - Lithium-ion (Li-ion)batteriesare an integral part of society, from cellphones and laptops to electric vehicles. While Li-ion batteries have been a major success to date, scientists worldwide are racing to design even better​“beyond Li-ion” batteries in the shift toward a more electrified ...

Visualising the Invisible: Active Sites in Antibacterial Nanomaterials

Fluorescence lifetime microscopy has great potential to systematically enhance the effectivenes of antibacterial nanomaterials

20-Dec-2024 - Interest in antibacterial nanomaterials has surged due to the growing threat of antibiotic-resistant microbes. A particularly promising strategy involves the use of nanomaterials that generate reactive oxygen species upon exposure to light, effectively combating microorganisms. However, a key ...

Overcoming the optical resolution limit

Microsphere assistance enables interferometric topography measurements

03-Nov-2022 - When measuring with light, the lateral extent of the structures that can be resolved by an optical imaging system is fundamentally diffraction limited. Overcoming this limitation is a topic of great interest in recent research, and several approaches have been published in this area. In a recent ...

Birch trees remove microplastics from the soil

With the help of trees, microplastic-polluted soils could be remediated

23-Feb-2022 - For the first time, researchers at IGB have shown that birch trees absorb microplastics through their roots during the growth phase. Good news, because soils are many times more polluted with microplastics than oceans are. So far, little is known about how microplastics interact with higher-order ...

World's first confocal light microscope to study chiral molecules

This discovery is a major breakthrough that will allow researchers to analyse previously unexplored parts of biology and chemistry

03-Feb-2022 - Scientists from Durham University’s Chemistry Department have developed the world’s first laser scanning confocal microscope that can harness Circularly Polarised Light (CPL) to differentiate left and right-handed molecules, also known as chiral molecules. The microscope, known as CPL Laser ...

Super-resolved imaging of a single cold atom on a nanosecond timescale

Scientists have made important progress in the research of cold atom super-resolution imaging

10-Jan-2022 - The teamofacademician GUO Guangcan ofUniversity of Science and Technology of China (USTC) of the Chinese Academy of Scienceshas made important progress in the research of cold atom super-resolution imaging. The team achieved super-resolution imaging of a single ion inanion trap system. The ...

The bitumen puzzle

Mix of methods provides new info

07-Jul-2021 - Although the history of bitumen dates back to the third millennium BC, only little is known about its surface structure. Researchers from TU Wien are now shedding light on the nature of the bitumen surface using physicochemical analyses. While atomic force microscopy and scanning electron ...

New microscopy method resolves fluorescent molecules with resolution at the nanometer scale

22-Mar-2021 - Scientists working with Stefan Hell at the Max Planck Institute (MPI) for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen and the Heidelberg-based MPI for Medical Research have developed another light microscopy method, called MINSTED, which resolves fluorescently labeled details with molecular sharpness. ...