Controlling Polymer shapes: A new generation of shape-adaptive materials

Researchers control ring polymer shapes by tuning electric charge

01-Aug-2025 - What if a complex material could reshape itself in response to a simple chemical signal? A team of physicists from the University of Vienna and the University of Edinburgh has shown that even small changes in pH value and thus in electric charge can shift the spatial arrangement of closed ...

Exotic vibrations in new materials

New insights show universal applicability of carbyne as a sensor

28-May-2025 - For the design of future materials, it is important to understand how the individual atoms inside a material interact with each other quantum mechanically. Previously inexplicable vibrational states between carbon chains (carbyne) and nanotubes have puzzled materials scientists. Researchers from ...

Lords of the molecular Rings: An Innovative Shortcut to High-Performance Organic Materials

A Game Changer for Advanced Technologies

19-Mar-2025 - Scientists at the Institute of Organic Chemistry, University of Vienna, have unveiled an innovative approach for synthesizing azaparacyclophanes (APCs), a class of highly advanced ring-shaped molecular structures with immense potential in material science. Their innovative Catalyst-Transfer ...

Breaking bonds to form bonds: Rethinking the Chemistry of Cations

New chemical reaction with potential applications in medicinal chemistry

22-May-2024 - A team of chemists from the University of Vienna, led by Nuno Maulide, has achieved a significant breakthrough in the field of chemical synthesis, developing a novel method for manipulating carbon-hydrogen bonds. This groundbreaking discovery provides new insights into the molecular interactions ...

New light for shaping electron beams

Adaptive imaging technique for materials science and structural biology

03-Oct-2022 - A new technique that combines electron microscopy and laser technology enables programmable, arbitrary shaping of electron beams. It can potentially be used for optimizing electron optics and for adaptive electron microscopy, maximizing sensitivity while minimizing beam-induced damage. This ...

"Hot" graphene reveals migration of carbon atoms

The study is an example of serendipity in research

27-Jun-2022 - The migration of carbon atoms on the surface of the nanomaterial graphene was recently measured for the first time. Although the atoms move too swiftly to be directly observed with an electron microscope, their effect on the stability of the material can now be determined indirectly while the ...

New State of Matter: Crystalline and Flowing at the Same Time

Particles with pompom-like structure

13-Dec-2021 - The predictions of researchers that certain particles of matter with sufficiently high density would form a new state - crystalline and flowing at the same time - could be confirmed in the laboratory. More than 20 years ago, researchers predicted that with sufficiently high density certain ...

New simulation-experiment combination allows deeper insights into ultrafast light-induced processes

14-Feb-2020 - Researchers from Graz University of Technology and the University of Vienna are demonstrating for the first time how the energy flow between strongly interacting molecular states can be better described. Since the 1990s, femtochemistry has been researching ultrafast processes at the molecular ...

When changing one atom makes molecules better

A method to replace hydrogen with fluorine in organic molecules makes drugs more effective

07-Mar-2019 - The development and improvement of pharmaceuticals plays the central role in the ongoing battle against human disease. Organic synthesis is the field that enables these developments as it offers the toolbox to diversify chemical structures. The group of Nuno Maulide, recently named the Scientist ...

For a longer battery life: Pushing lithium ion batteries to the next performance level

Chemists develop new anode material

17-Dec-2018 - Conventional lithium ion batteries, such as those widely used in smartphones and notebooks, have reached performance limits. Materials chemist Freddy Kleitz from the Faculty of Chemistry of the University of Vienna and international scientists have developed a new nanostructured anode material ...