Environmentally friendly hydrothermal synthesis of a substance with both organic and inorganic properties in a single process

15-Jun-2022

The production of chemical substances normally requires environmentally harmful solvents. After the research group of Miriam Unterlass, professor of solid state chemistry at the University of Konstanz, produced organic substances without harmful substances for the first time by heating them in ...

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New class of water-soluble catalysts that can be used to polymerize ethylene directly in water

22-Apr-2022

Chemists from Konstanz develop a new class of catalysts that enable manufacturing of polyethylene dispersions directly in water. This opens up perspectives for the environmentally-friendly, solvent-free production of plastic coatings. Polyethylene (PE) is one of today's most important types of ...

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A research collaboration can read out optically previously indistinguishable spin states by using a newly developed spectroscopy method

05-Jan-2022

The alternation between singlet and triplet states of electron pairs in charge-separated states plays an important role in nature. Presumably, even the compass of migratory birds can be explained by the influence of the geomagnetic field on the magnetic interplay between these two spin states. ...

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07-Dec-2021

Research team led by Constance produces three-dimensional mesocrystals from two different types of nanocrystals - platinum and magnetite - for the first time. This lays the foundation for the synthesis of novel nanostructured solids with previously unexplored properties. Mesocrystals are a class ...

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03-Nov-2021

Ultrashort flashes of light lasting less than a quadrillionth of a second are fast growing in technological importance. In laser sources, pairs and groups of light flashes can be created instead of individual flashes. Similar to the chemically bonded atoms in a molecule, they are coupled with ...

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Discovery of a new form of magnetism in strontium ruthenate

07-Oct-2021

Since the discovery of superconductivity in Sr2RuO4 in 1994, hundreds of studies have been published on this compound, which have suggested that Sr2RuO4 is a very special system with unique properties. These properties make Sr2RuO4 a material with great potential, for example, for the development ...

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Femtosecond light creates switchable nano-waves in MXenes and moves the materials’ atoms at a record-breaking speed

03-Sep-2021

Ultrafast laser spectroscopy allows to observe the motion of atoms at their natural time scales in the range of femtoseconds, the millionth of a billionth of a second. Electron microscopy, on the other hand, provides atomic spatial resolution. By combining electrons and photons in one instrument, ...

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Chemists have developed a method for more sustainable recycling of polyethylene-like plastics

22-Feb-2021

Plastics belong to the most widely used materials, and they are vital components of all modern technologies. So far, it has been possible to recycle these valuable materials only to a limited extent. In order to offer novel solutions, chemists of Professor Stefan Mecking’s group at the University ...

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Discovery of liquid glass sheds light on the old scientific problem of the glass transition

07-Jan-2021

An interdisciplinary team of researchers from the University of Konstanz has uncovered a new state of matter, liquid glass, with previously unknown structural elements – new insights into the nature of glass and its transitions. While glass is a truly ubiquitous material that we use on a daily ...

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Watching metamaterials at work in real time using ultrafast electron diffraction

26-Nov-2020

Physicists from the University of Konstanz, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (LMU Munich) and the University of Regensburg have successfully demonstrated that ultrashort electron pulses experience a quantum mechanical phase shift through their interaction with light waves in nanophotonic ...

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