Category archives: Materials

Worldwide research efforts on plasmons and metamaterials have been growing exponentially for the past ten years. Now, Antonio I. Fernández-Domínguez (IFIMAC), Francisco J. García-Vidal (IFIMAC & DIPC), and Luis Martín-Moreno (ICMA) discuss new directions for the future, such as the use of 2D materials and strong coupling phenomena, which are likely to shape the field […]

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. GNRs are very interesting structures, partly due to their attractive electronic properties. Those properties vary dramatically with changes in the […]

Beginning in 1928, Felix Bloch, an assistant to Werner Heisenberg in Leipzig, began to make some realistic assumptions in an attempt to formulate a more complete quantum mechanics of electrical conductivity. First, because he wanted to assign a definite momentum and energy to each of the electrons, but not a definite position or a time […]

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 solid in which atoms are random and have no long-range orderd pattern. These kind of […]

When we approximate two superconducting materials at low temperature, so that they are only separated by a very thin layer (less than 10 nanometres thick) of an insulating material, some new and very interesting electrical effects can be observed. If normal conducting metals are separated by such a barrier in that conditions it is possible […]

Amputees are people that have had a limb removed by trauma, medical illness, or surgery. In this latter case, it is used to control pain or a disease process in the affected limb, such as malignancy or gangrene. Nevertheless, most new amputations occur due to complications of the vascular system, especially from diabetes. It is […]

Imagine a very simple chemical estructure: 4 carbon and 1 nitrogen forming a ring, with no double bonds, just simple bonds between any two of them and with hydrogen. This compound is called pyrrolidine and is the base of very important biological and farmacological products. Pyrrolidine is found naturally in the leaves of tobacco and […]

Faster. That is the word that describes de evolution of electronics. Any new development has to be faster than anything before, if it is going to cope with the huge amount of information that the device where it may be incorporated will have to process in almost no time. Graphene has just demonstrated once again […]

The other day I came across an article about the revolution of cultured meat at El País Semanal, although that was not the first time I read about this. Still, I have to admit is such a shocking subject that I thought it may deserve a post explaining how advanced this technology is at the […]

A topological insulator is a material in which there is order associated to topology, i.e., the surface can conduct electricity but the bulk of the material is an insulator. In these last years topological insulators have received the attention of a large area of the scientific community thanks to their exotic properties. They are promising […]