An atomic projectile colliding with a surface at kinetic energies in the thermal or hyperthermal range interacts with and is reflected by the electronic density well in front of the first layer of target atoms, and it is generally accepted that the repulsive interaction potential is proportional to the density of electrons extending outside the […]
For the past century, students of chemistry, materials science, and physics have been taught to model solid-state materials by considering their chemical composition, the number and location of their electrons, and lastly, the role of more complicated interactions. However, an international team of scientists has recently discovered that an additional ingredient must also be equally […]
Nanothreads are one-dimensional nanomaterials composed of a primarily sp 3 hydrocarbon backbone, typically formed through the compression of small molecules to high pressures. In 2015, it was found that the slow room-temperature compression of benzene produced crystalline, one-dimensional polymers composed of diamond-like bonds. These diamondoid materials that border nanotubes and polymers are predicted to possess […]
Concluding that the neutrino is a Majorana particle would be really a turning point in our understanding of the universe. It would mean the non-conservation of a magnitude called the leptonic number, one of the key characteristics in a fermion, meaning that there would be an explanation to the matter-anti matter asymmetry: the creation of […]
Transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) are layered compounds which can be thinned down to the single-layer limit. While mechanical exfoliation generates atomically thin TMD flakes possessing an area of a few square microns, chemical and physical methods provide high-quality monolayers on large-area substrates, which are suitable for actual technological applications. TMDs are a class of van […]
CFM • DIPC • DIPC Photonics
Usually, optical activity is understood as the ability some substances have to change the handedness of polarized light when it goes through them. Molecules that show optical activity have no plane of symmetry. So-called chiral matter broadly describes structures for which left- or right-handed mirror images are non-superimposable, or, equivalently, that lack improper rotation axes […]
Graphene nanoribbons (GNRs), are strips of graphene with ultra-thin width (<50 nm). Graphene ribbons were introduced as a theoretical model by Mitsutaka Fujita and coauthors to examine the edge and nanoscale size effect in graphene. Now, a team of researchers reports the generation of net spins on chiral GNRs (chGNRs) by ketone functionalization. GNRs are […]
A gravitational lens is any object that deflects light by gravitation as described by the general theory of relativity; it is analogous to a lens in optics. The prediction of a gravitational lensing effect was confirmed repeatedly in observations on quasars. In 1979 an apparently double quasar was discovered, due to the multiple image of […]
When talking about molecules, “open shell” signifies that there are unpaired electrons. In terms of molecular orbital theory, it means that some molecular orbitals are singly occupied. Organic open-shell compounds are extraordinarily attractive materials for their use in molecular spintronics. In spintronics, new memory and logic devices are being developed based on the use of […]
Imagine a conductor or a semiconductor through which a current is flowing. Then we apply a strong transverse magnetic field. As a result, we can measure a potential difference at right angles to both the current and the field caused by the deflection of charge carriers by the field. This effect was described by Edwin […]