A quantum leap in optical microscopy

Researchers from Regensburg and Birmingham overcome a fundamental limitation of optical microscopy

03-Feb-2026 - From smartphone cameras to space telescopes, the desire to see ever finer detail has driven technological progress. Yet as we probe smaller and smaller length scales, we encounter a fundamental boundary set by light itself. Because light behaves as a wave, it cannot be focused arbitrarily sharply ...

Energy Portrait: Capturing a Molecule's Moment of Excitement

30-Sep-2024 - Researchers at the University of Regensburg in collaboration with IBM Research Europe - Zurich have found a way to access excited states of single molecules and determine their energies. A very fundamental property of atoms and molecules are the energies, at which electrons can be added to or ...

Small steps for electrons – big steps for the solar cells of the future?

Novel measurement method helps to improve perovskite solar cells in a targeted manner

19-Jul-2024 - Physicists at the University of Regensburg and the University of Oxford are using an ultrafast microscope to reveal how electrons move in a new type of solar cell material. The results provide insights into how the material can be used even more efficiently for photovoltaics. In the search for ...

Looking at the Sides of Molecules: Lateral force microscopy reveals previously unseen hydrogen atoms

The ability to directly observe hydrogen atoms marks a significant breakthrough and opening up new avenues for research and innovation

23-Jan-2024 - Researchers at the University of Regensburg and the Graz University of Technology have shown that hydrogen atoms at the sides of molecules lying on a surface can directly be seen. The study, published in the journal “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences”, describes that by looking ...

A novel microscope operates on the quantum state of single electrons

08-Dec-2023 - We, and everything around us consists of molecules. The molecules are so tiny that even a speck of dust contains countless of them. The more fascinating it is that nowadays it is routinely possible to precisely image such molecules with a microscope called atomic force microscope. It works quite ...

A novel microscope pins down the miracle of molecular oxygen

Researchers track the first step of the reaction of one single dye pigment with oxygen at unprecedented resolution

26-Jul-2021 - Why is it that the colours of a t-shirt fade over time in the sun? Why do you get a sunburn, and why do the leaves of a tree turn brown in the autumn? These questions all have one theme in common, the interplay between dye pigments and ambient oxygen. Every child learns about this chemical ...

Physicists watch electron transfer in a single molecule

15-Feb-2019 - The building blocks of matter surrounding us are atoms and molecules. The properties of that matter, however, are often not set by these building blocks directly, but rather by their mutual interactions, which are governed by their outer electron shells. Many chemical processes are based on the ...

Feynman Prizes in nanotechnology awarded to Bartosz A. Grzybowski and Franz J. Giessibl

05-Oct-2016 - Foresight Institute announced the laureates for the 2016 Foresight Institute Feynman Prizes. Established in 1993, The Feynman prize was named in honor of pioneer physicist Richard Feynman. The prize is given in two categories of nanotechnology, one for experiment and the other for theory. For the ...

Slow-motion movies of tiny nanostructures

Researchers developed a novel microscope

07-Oct-2014 - Physicists from the University of Regensburg have developed a novel microscope that allows them to record slow-motion movies of tiny nanostructures with groundbreaking time resolution – faster even than a single oscillation cycle of light. With their new microscope they have directly imaged the ...

Two new forms of elemental phosphorus: rod-shaped molecular chains of phosphorus cages

18-Aug-2004 - The elemental form of phosphorus has been known for some 350 years. But all phosphorus is not created equal-this element turns up in many forms. White phosphorus consists of four-atom phosphorus molecules, which additionally exist in three different crystalline forms, and is very reactive to ...