Chemically induced nanostructures

15-Aug-2022

Electrical energy from wind or sun can be stored as chemical energy in hydrogen, an excellent fuel and energy carrier. The prerequisite for this, however, is efficient electrolysis of water with inexpensive catalysts. For the oxygen evolution reaction at the anode, nanostructured nickel silicide ...

more

08-Aug-2022

C60 molecules on a gold substrate appear more complex than their graphene counterparts, but have much more ordinary electronic properties. This is now shown by measurements with ARPES at BESSY II and detailed calculations. Graphene consists of carbon atoms that crosslink in a plane to form a flat ...

more

Discovery is a real surprise

19-Jul-2022

Oxidation states of transition metals describe how many electrons of an element are already engaged in bonding, and how many are still available for further reactions. Scientists from Berlin and Freiburg have now discovered the highest oxidation state of rhodium, indicating that rhodium can ...

more

A better understanding of the chemistry of water

12-Jul-2022

Liquids are more difficult to describe than gases or crystalline solids. An HZB team has now mapped the potential energy surfaces of water molecules in liquid water under ambient conditions for the first time at the Swiss Light Source SLS of the Paul Scherrer Institute, Switzerland. This ...

more

07-Jul-2022

Germanium telluride is a strong candidate for use in functional spintronic devices due to its giant Rashba-effect. Now, scientists at HZB have discovered another intriguing phenomenon in GeTe by studying the electronic response to thermal excitation of the samples. To their surprise, the ...

more

High-entropy alloys are under discussion for very different applications

30-Jun-2022

High-entropy alloys of 3d metals have intriguing properties that are interesting for applications in the energy sector. An international team at BESSY II has now investigated the local order on an atomic scale in a so-called high-entropy Cantor alloy of chromium, manganese, iron, cobalt and ...

more

16-Jun-2022

With conventional methods, it is extremely time-consuming to calculate the spectral fingerprint of larger molecules. But this is a prerequisite for correctly interpreting experimentally obtained data. Now, a team at HZB has achieved very good results in significantly less time using self-learning ...

more

The analysis opens new possibilities for more efficient and thus more cost-effective fuel cells

09-Jun-2022

Teams from Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB) and University College London (UCL) have visualised the water distribution in a fuel cell in three dimensions and in real time for the first time by evaluating neutron data from the Berlin Experimental Reactor shut down in 2019. The analysis opens new ...

more

CARE-O-SENE research project will develop advanced catalysts for sustainable aviation fuels

27-May-2022

The company Sasol and Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB) will lead a consortium to develop and optimise next-generation catalysts that will play a key role in decarbonising the aviation sector through sustainable aviation fuels (SAF). At a ceremony at Sasol’s global headquarters in Johannesburg, ...

more

"The heat efficiently reduces structural defects, trap states, grain boundaries, and phase impurities"

07-Apr-2022

Producing low-cost metal-oxide thin films with high electronic quality for solar water splitting is not an easy task. Especially since quality improvements of the upper metal oxide thin films need thermal processing at high temperatures, which would melt the underlying glass substrate. Now, a ...

more