The ‘black box’ of precursor chemistry cracked open

From Guesswork to Predictive Control: Decoding Metal-Organic Precursor Chemistry

06-Oct-2025 - A team of scientists led by the Paul Drude Institute for Solid State Electronics (PDI) in Berlin has cracked open the “black box” of precursor chemistry, revealing—for the first time—the hidden reaction pathways of a key compound used in the growth of complex oxides. Their predictive framework ...

Machine learning reveals the mysteries of thin films at atomic scale

High-accuracy atomistic modeling of amorphous materials

15-Aug-2025 - Amorphous aluminum oxide is often used in the form of protective thin films and membranes. However, what happens at the atomic level in the material is poorly understood. Thanks to innovative experiments and machine learning, an interdisciplinary team of Empa researchers was able to model its ...

Detecting fluorescence signals from nanoscale thin films

New possibilities in product labeling

01-Jul-2022 - Researchers from INNOVENT e.V. and Ferdinand-Braun-Institut gGmbH have developed a measurement technique that allows to detect nanoscale fluorescent thin films for the first time without using expensive laboratory equipment. The addressed fields of appli-cation of fluorescent thin films and the ...

Solar hydrogen: Better photoelectrodes through flash heating

"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 ...

Shrimply the best composite membranes

Waste materials are used to create an environmentally friendly filtration system for industrial applications.

31-Jan-2022 - Shrimp shells, plant extracts and recycled plastic have helped KAUST researchers to build a sustainable thin-film composite membrane that could replace conventional membranes whose environmental toll is greater. Thin-film composite membranes are widely used in applications such as wastewater ...

X-ray analysis points way to flexible and transparent magnets

Organic radicals enable new applications and might become a sustainable replacement for rare earths

03-Jan-2022 - Magnets from organic materials can enable new applications and offer a sustainable alternative to metal magnets containing rare earths. With a worldwide unique experimental setup at DESY's X-ray source PETRA III, scientists from Tübingen, Hamburg, Berlin, Nebraska und Italy have demonstrated ...

Perovskite Solar Cells: paving the way for rational ink design for industrial-scale manufacturing

01-Dec-2020 - For the production of high-quality metal-halide perovskite thin-films for large area photovoltaic modules often optimized inks are used which contain a mixture of solvents. An HZB team at BESSY II has now analysed the crystallisation processes within such mixtures. A model has also been developed ...

Luminescent wood could light up homes of the future

Luminescent and hydrophobic wood films as optical lighting materials

06-Nov-2020 - The right indoor lighting can help set the mood, from a soft romantic glow to bright, stimulating colors. But some materials used for lighting, such as plastics, are not eco-friendly. Now, researchers reporting in ACS Nano have developed a bio-based, luminescent, water-resistant wood film that ...

Order in the disorder: density fluctuations in amorphous silicon discovered

New study shows that three different phases form within the amorphous matrix, which influences the quality and lifetime of the semiconductor layer

02-Nov-2020 - For the first time, a team at HZB has identified the atomic substructure of amorphous silicon with a resolution of 0.8 nanometres using X-ray and neutron scattering at BESSY II and BER II. Such a-Si:H thin films have been used for decades in solar cells, TFT displays, and detectors. The results ...

Worth their salt: Researchers report first case of hexagonal NaCl

28-May-2020 - Skoltech and MIPT scientists have predicted and then experimentally confirmed the existence of exotic hexagonal thin films of NaCl on a diamond surface. These films may be useful as gate dielectrics for field effect transistors in electric vehicles and telecommunication equipment. As graphene, ...