Category archives: Quantum chemistry

Ever since the birth of quantum mechanics in the early twentieth century, chemists have struggled with a fundamental paradox. On one hand, Lewis dot structures and molecular drawings teach us to think of electrons as localized entities—either sitting neatly in lone pairs or shared directly between two bonding atoms. On the other hand, Schrödinger’s wave […]

Chemical bonds are among the most familiar ideas in science. They explain why hydrogen and oxygen combine to form water, why carbon atoms build long chains in organic molecules, and why every substance has the shape and properties it does. Yet, despite their central role in chemistry, bonds are not directly observable objects. They are […]

Molecules are never truly still. Even in apparently stable matter, atoms vibrate continuously, stretching and bending the chemical bonds that hold them together. These vibrations are not random noise: they determine how molecules absorb light, exchange energy, and undergo chemical reactions. One of the central challenges in chemistry is learning how to direct energy into […]

Traditional chemistry textbooks present a tidy picture: Atoms in molecules occupy fixed positions, connected by rigid rods. A molecule such as formic acid (methanoic acid, HCOOH) is imagined as two-dimensional—flat as a sheet of paper. But quantum physics tells a different story. In reality, nature resists rigidity and forces even the simplest structures into the […]

Quantum computers promise to change how we calculate the behavior of electrons in molecules, but for the machines we have now — noisy, limited in size and coherence — the challenge is to squeeze the most chemistry out of the least quantum hardware. Now, a new paper introduces a practical trick to do exactly that: […]

When scientists place a single molecule on a surface and move electrons in or out one at a time, quantum mechanics comes to life in vivid detail. A team of researchers used a specialized microscope to study a copper-phthalocyanine (CuPc) molecule resting on a thin layer of salt. They discovered that the salt, far from […]

Quantum chemistry is a field that dives into the behaviour of atoms and molecules at their most fundamental level, using the principles of quantum mechanics to understand how electrons interact within these systems. For researchers, one of the biggest challenges is studying systems where electrons are strongly correlated—meaning their movements are highly interdependent, like dancers […]