Back in 1929, theoretical physicist Hermann Weyl predicted the existence of a new elementary particle with intriguing properties. Specifically, it would be massless (like a photon), have half-integer spin (like an electron) and exist in two mirror-image versions (like left- and right-handed gloves)—a property known as chirality. Imagine there exist a material in which an […]
Charge density wave (CDW) is a many-body state of matter in which both lattice and electron density are modulated by a new periodicity. CDW features discrete translational symmetry-breaking, and mostly occurs in low-dimensional materials. Although CDW behaviours have been found in many materials, the underlying mechanism and the driving forces of CDW transition are still […]
During the last decades, the electronics industry has been very successful in pushing forward the advancement of electronic building blocks, but the limit of silicon-based electronic devices especially in terms of miniaturization are almost reached. There are many ideas how to overcome this problem, for example, by adding functionality based on approaches originating from molecular […]
Today, computational chemistry helps the experimental chemist understand experimental data, explore reaction mechanisms or predict completely new molecules. There is no doubt that understanding at the molecular level will ultimately lead to an ab initio process design. Thus, the solution of the quantum mechanical many-electron problem is one of the central problems of physics and […]
Honouring a secular tradition in the physical sciences, that of the Boltzmann constant (created by Planck) and the Avogadro constant (created by Cannizaro), the Auger effect was discovered by Lise Meitner in 1922 and rediscovered by Pierre Auger in 1923. The effect consists in the ejection of an electron from an atom without the emission […]
Astrophysics • Cosmology • DIPC Astrophysics • DIPC Computational Cosmology
The Javalambre-Photometric Local Universe Survey, J-PLUS, is an unprecedented photometric sky survey of 8500 deg 2 visible from Javalambre (Aragón, Spain), using a set of 12 broad, intermediate and narrow-band filters. The J-PLUS photometric system is well suited to study the properties of nearby galaxies (z < 0.015). However, there are a few redshift windows […]
DIPC Electronic Properties • Quantum physics • Theoretical physics
Density functional theory (DFT) is a theoretical treatment of molecules in which the electron density is considered rather than the wave functions of individual electrons. In other words, it is a way of describing many-electron, in general, many-fermion, systems in which the energy is a funtional of the density of electrons (fermions). DFT is without […]
In spintronics, new memory and logic devices are being developed based on the use of spins of nuclei, atoms, or molecules, instead of electronic charges. The main advantages are an improved energy efficiency and speed of operation to store and process information. The ability of organic molecules to maintain magnetic multistability in nanoscale junctions will […]
Topological insulators are electronic materials that have a bulk band gap like an ordinary insulator but have conducting states on their edge or surface. The conducting surface is not what makes topological insulators unique, but the fact that it is protected due to the combination of spin-orbit interactions and time-reversal symmetry. Inducing magnetism in topological […]
The so-called van der Waals materials consist of two-dimensional layers bound by weak van der Waals forces. After the isolation of graphene, the field of two-dimensional van der Waals materials has experienced an explosive growth and new families of two-dimensional systems and block-layered bulk materials have been created. This growth has been fuelled mainly by […]