Left-handed or right-handed? Nanostructures identified by light

Opportunities for biology and materials science

06-Aug-2025 - How do left-handed and right-handed molecules differ? Researchers at ETH Zurich are using a new imaging method to visualise what was previously only measurable as an average, opening up new possibilities for biology and materials science. Why do spearmint and caraway seeds smell so differently, ...

Ultra-thin lenses that make infrared light visible

Researchers have achieved this using a special metal-oxide lens material called lithium niobate and through nanoscale pattern, stamped into the material

03-Jun-2025 - Physicists at ETH Zurich have developed a lens with magic properties. Ultra-thin, it can transform infrared light into visible light by halving the wavelength of incident light. Lenses are the most widely used optical devices. Camera lens or objectives, for example, produce a sharp photo or video ...

This nanotube has a nose for oxygen

A light-activated high-performance sensor can precisely detect oxygen in complex gas mixtures

13-Mar-2025 - ETH researchers have developed a low-cost sensor made of carbon nanotubes that can selectively, efficiently and reliably measure minute quantities of oxygen in gas mixtures under light. The detector could be widely used in industry, medicine and environmental monitoring. Oxygen is essential for ...

Gold membrane coaxes secrets out of surfaces

Thousand-fold signal amplification

26-Jun-2024 - Using a special wafer-thin gold membrane, ETH researchers have made it significantly easier to study surfaces. The membrane makes it possible to measure properties of surfaces that are inaccessible to conventional methods. “Surfaces were invented by the devil” - this quote is attributed to the ...

Electron vortices in graphene detected

“Thanks to our extremely sensitive sensor and high spatial resolution, we didn’t even need to cool down the graphene...”

14-May-2024 - Researchers at ETH Zurich have, for the first time, made visible how electrons form vortices in a material at room temperature. Their experiment used a quantum sensing microscope with an extremely high resolution. When an ordinary electrical conductor – such as a metal wire – is connected to a ...

Watching electrons at work

Looking inside nanocrystals

06-Dec-2023 - Researchers from ETH Zurich, Empa - Swiss Federal Laboratory for Materials Science and Technology, and Stanford have taken snapshots of the crystal structure of perovskite nanocrystals as it was deformed by excited electrons. To their surprise, the deformation straightened out the skewed crystal ...

Attosecond measurement on electrons in water clusters

22-Jul-2022 - Researchers at ETH Zurich have developed a method that enables time-​resolved measurements of electron motion in water clusters lasting only a few attoseconds. The technique can be used for more detailed studies of water as well as faster electronics. Virtually all vital chemical processes take ...

Light amplification accelerates chemical reactions in aerosols

Temporal sequence of photochemical reaction in individual aerosol particles observed with high resolution

21-Apr-2022 - Aerosols in the atmosphere react to incident sunlight. This light is amplified in the interior of the aerosol droplets and particles, accelerating reactions. ETH researchers have now been able to demonstrate and quantify this effect and recommend factoring it into future climate models. Liquid ...

Electron movements in liquid measured in super-slow motion

“Electron movements are the key events in chemical reactions”

24-Aug-2020 - Electrons are able to move within molecules, for example when they are excited from outside or in the course of a chemical reaction. For the first time, scientists have now succeeded in studying the first few dozen attoseconds of this electron movement in a liquid. To understand how chemical ...

Monitoring the corrosion of bioresorbable magnesium

Better prediction of degradation rate of magnesium implants

28-Oct-2019 - ETH researchers have recently been able to monitor the corrosion of bioresorbable magnesium alloys at the nanoscale over a time scale of a few seconds to many hours. This is an important step towards accurately predicting how fast implants are resorbed by the body to enable the development of ...