Category Archives: Condensed matter
A photonic crystal the size of a single free space wavelength
You can read this article because I have used photonics in order to make it possible. It may sound futuristic, but photonics is a technology we use, one way or the other, on a daily basis. Photonic devices are analogous […]
Detection of the reversal of magnetic moments in an antiferromagnet
Some metals, alloys and transition-element salts exhibit a form of magnetism called antiferromagnetism. This occurs below a certain temperature, named after Louis Néel, when an ordered array of atomic magnetic moments spontaneously forms in which alternate moments have opposite directions. […]
Polariton anomalous Hall effect in transition-metal dichalcogenides
Two-dimensional materials, such as transition-metal dichalcogenides embedded in optical cavities, stand out as an excellent platform where strong light-matter interactions can be studied. Moreover, their band structures bring about nontrivial topological features, including the possibility of inducing some really […]
The protective effect of symmetry in entangled photonic states
One of the most mysterious features of quantum mechanics is that if two particles (or photons) interact at some point in time then the properties of these particles will remain connected at future times. A consequence of this is that […]
Catalysis depends on the crystallographic plane of the catalyst
A catalyst is a substance that increases the rate of a chemical reaction without itself undergoing any permanent chemical change. As the catalyst itself takes part in the reaction it may undergo a physical change. Hence, if catalysts take […]
Origin of the mysterious blue fluorescence of polymer carbon dots
A quantum dot is a nanometric crystalline structure of semiconductor materials. In a quatum dot electrons are confined in a region of space, thus creating a well defined structure of energy levels that depends very much on the size and […]
Nonequilibrium effects in hybrids of electron systems with spontaneously broken symmetries
Imagine a military regiment in formation. That we will call symmetry. Now imagine the same regiment when it is dismissed by the commanding officer: at once the soldiers disperse and tend to form domains (groups) or pairs. Hence, we can […]
Buckyball difluoride, a single-molecule crystal
Endohedral fullerenes, also called endofullerenes, are fullerenes that have additional atoms, ions, or clusters enclosed within their inner spheres. The first lanthanum C60 complex was synthesized in 1985 and called La@C60. The @ (at sign) in the […]
Unlocking graphene’s spintronic potential through spin-valley coupling
Author: José H. García is a postdoctoral researcher at the Catalan Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (ICN2).
Few materials have drawn as much attention as graphene, it fascinating attributes such as one-atom thickness and relativistic electrons, and its technological properties […]
Avoiding geological timescales to access low energies in bulk glasses
Common glass, used in windows or bottles, for example, is made by heating a mixture of calcium oxide (lime), sodium carbonate (soda), and silicon (IV) oxide (sand), resulting in a calcium silicate. This silicate is not a crystal but a […]