Shining potential of missing atoms

Single-atom vacancies in atomically thin insulators created in ultra-high vacuum

15-Jun-2023 - Single photons have applications in quantum computation, information networks, and sensors, and these can be emitted by defects in the atomically thin insulator hexagonal boron nitride (hBN). Missing nitrogen atoms have been suggested to be the atomic structure responsible for this activity, but ...

Graphene scientists capture first images of atoms ‘swimming’ in liquid

02-Aug-2022 - Graphene scientists from The University of Manchester have created a novel ‘nano-petri dish’ using two-dimensional (2D) materials to create a new method of observing how atoms move in liquid Publishing in the journal, Nature,the team led by researchers based at the National Graphene Institute ...

Golden wedding for molecules

Opportunities for a "new" chemistry

20-Apr-2022 - Chemical syntheses in liquids and gases take place in three-dimensional space. Random collisions between molecules have to result in something new in an extremely short time. But there is another way: on a gold surface under ultrahigh vacuum conditions, molecules lying still next to each other ...

Revealing the secret of the vacuum for the first time

20-Mar-2019 - For most people, a vacuum is an empty space. Quantum physics, on the other hand, assumes that even in this lowest-energy state, particles and antiparticles still fluctuate. This is an assumption for which no clear evidence has been provided as yet. A new research group at the University of Jena ...

Keep in touch, use the vacuum! How mirrors can control physics and chemistry

14-Feb-2019 - Hamburg scientists’ theory of polaritonically amplified energy transfer over long distances between molecules paves the way for a new level of chemical engineering and ‘spooky chemistry’. Scientists from the Theory Department of the Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter ...

Developing new materials for the fusion reactor

Success in developing vanadium alloys strong at high temperatures

11-Dec-2018 - In the future fusion reactor, plasma is confined by using the magnetic field inside the doughnut-shaped vacuum vessel. The blanket is in a location where it almost touches the plasma, and as if to enfold the plasma the blanket is placed on the inner surface of the vacuum chamber. The blanket, by ...

The force of the vacuum

Scientists’ theory of polaritonically amplified electron lattice interaction reveals new material design possibilities

07-Dec-2018 - Scientists from the Theory Department of the Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter (MPSD) at the Center for Free-Electron Laser Science (CFEL) in Hamburg have shown through theoretical calculations and computer simulations that the force between electrons and lattice ...

A new way to measure nearly nothing

Prototype design uses ultracold trapped atoms to measure pressure

23-Oct-2018 - Many semiconductor fabricators and research labs are under increasing pressure from, of all things, vacuum. These facilities need to remove greater amounts of gas molecules and particles from their setups as new technologies and processes demand lower and lower pressures. For example, the vacuum ...

Breaking the bond: To take part or not?

10-Jul-2018 - Physicists working with Roland Wester at the University of Innsbruck have investigated if and how chemical reactions can be influenced by targeted vibrational excitation of the reactants. They were able to demonstrate that excitation with a laser beam does not affect the efficiency of a chemical ...

Filling lithium-ion cells faster

Neutrons pave the way to accelerated production of lithium-ion cells

22-Mar-2018 - Developers from Bosch and scientists at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) are using neutrons to analyze the filling of lithium ion batteries for hybrid cars with electrolytes. Their experiments show that electrodes are wetted twice as fast in a vacuum as under normal pressure. One of the ...