Using electron microscopy to create ultrafast movies of nano-processes

27-Feb-2023

A slow-motion movie on sports television channels shows processes in hundredths of a second. By contrast, processes on the nanoscale take place in the so-called femtosecond range: For example, an electron needs only billionths of a second to orbit a hydrogen atom. Physicists around the world are ...

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Organic chemist develop new catalyst to selectively activate carbon-hydrogen bonds

26-Jan-2023

Substituted aromatics are among the most important building blocks for organic compounds such as drugs, crop­protecting agents, and many materials. The function of the molecules is determined by the spatial arrangement of the different building blocks, the substitution pattern. A research team ...

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This new process could be particularly useful in chemically synthesizing compounds

15-Dec-2022

In a recent study, researchers at Freie Universität Berlin, the DESY research center in Hamburg, Kiel University, and Kansas State University have shown how light can turn a planar molecule into a chiral molecule with just one particular handedness, providing a solution to the long-standing ...

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The new method will improve the understanding of interactions in molecular systems and to further develop simulation methods

22-Sep-2022

In molecules, the atoms vibrate with characteristic patterns and frequencies. Vibrations are therefore an important tool for studying molecules and molecular processes such as chemical reactions. Although scanning tunnelling microscopes can be used to image individual molecules, their vibrations ...

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Researchers discover a path to a shape-shifting ceramic material

23-Nov-2021

From coffee cups to bathroom tiles, ceramics are brittle. Subject to the slightest deformation, they shatter. On the other end of the spectrum of materials, some of the most deformable materials known - that also support large stresses while they deform - are shape memory alloys. The origin of ...

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New method for the generation of controllable electrical explosions

17-Nov-2021

Theoretically, it only takes 450 grams of this material to lift an elephant: "Aerographene" owes this ability to its unique structure at the nano level. Visually similar to a black foam, it actually consists of a finely-structured tubular network based on graphene with numerous cavities. This ...

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Research team from the Kiel Evolution Center investigates the role of a reduction in bacterial population size and resulting random effects in the evolution of antibiotic resistance

28-Jul-2021

Antibiotic-resistant pathogens have become one of the greatest threats to public health. In just a few years, previously harmless bacterial infections may no longer be treatable and may once again become a leading non-natural cause of death, as they were before the antibiotic era began until the ...

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How to obtain a palladium catalyst for the selective hydrogenation of acrolein

24-Jun-2021

Chemical reactions don’t always go to plan. Unwanted by-products lead to extra costs and waste resources. Selective catalysts can help, but chemists have to test out large numbers before they find the right fit. Researchers have now investigated, on an atomic level, how to obtain a palladium ...

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Materials scientists synthesize nanoscale gradient copolymers with contradictory properties for the first time

05-Nov-2020

Materials that simultaneously have contrasting properties – for example, they are soft on the one hand and hard on the other, the transition is gradual - could enable completely new applications like gradual anti-reflective lenses. In nature, such merging properties are indeed common, for example ...

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New NMR methods for investigating paramagnetic complexes and supramolecular cages developed

21-Sep-2020

Chemistry and structural biology use the standard methods of NMR spectroscopy (NMR = nuclear magnetic resonance) to examine the structure of molecules including large molecules like proteins in solution. The NMR active nuclei, such as hydrogen atoms, are excited using radiofrequency pulses in ...

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