News by Subject Chemistry & Physics

Living cells are constantly exposed to a wide variety of mechanical stresses: heart and lungs must withstand expansion and contraction; our skin must be resistant to tearing whilst retaining elasticity; immune cells are squashy so they can move through the body. "Intermediate filaments" (special protein structures), play an important role here. Researchers at Göttingen University have now measured what determines the properties of individual filaments, and which features only occur through the interaction of filaments in networks.

Researchers at Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST) propose a scheme to identify and weigh the quantum orbits in strong-field tunneling ionization.

A study published in Science Advances reports on the unexpected observation of thermal waves in germanium, a semiconductor material, for the first time. This phenomenon may allow a significant improvement in the performance of our electronic devices in a near future. The study is led by researchers from the Institute of Materials Science of Barcelona (ICMAB, CSIC) in collaboration with researchers from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, and the University of Cagliari.

The new technology, enabling the storage of information in the thinnest unit known to science, is expected to improve future electronic devices in terms of density, speed, and efficiency. The allowed quantum-mechanical electron tunneling through the atomically thin film may boost the information reading process much beyond current technologies. The technology involves laterally sliding one-atom-thick layers of boron and nitrogen one over the other -- a new way to switch electric polarization on/off.

Researchers from The University of Tokyo Institute of Industrial Science and Fudan University experimentally confirmed three previously unknown phase transition phenomena in soft colloidal crystals. Knowledge of such phenomena will be useful for imparting new properties to materials without altering their chemical composition.

A promising approach captures atmospheric carbon dioxide and then through CO2 electrolysis converts it into value-added chemicals and intermediates, like ethanol. Reducing the energy consumption of this high-power process has been underexplored. In ACS Energy Letters, researchers from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign report a new opportunity to use magnetism to reduce the energy required for CO2 electrolysis by up to 60% in a flow electrolyzer.

Analysis of the nanostructure and in-situ structural evolution of Zr-doped NVPF completely coated with nitrogen-doped carbon.

Engineers have developed a sweat-proof "electronic skin" -- a conformable, sensor-embedded sticky patch that reliably monitors a person's health, even when a wearer is perspiring. The patch contains artificial sweat ducts through the material's ultrathin layers.

Due to plasmon resonance, the electric field near a metal nanoparticle can be enhanced by tens and hundreds of times. This means that such nanostructures function as optical nanoantennas that enhance the light-matter interaction.

A team of scientists from Osaka University, Osaka Prefecture University, and Nagoya University created three-dimensional maps of the force fields around quantum dots caused by laser light. Using atomic force microscopy with frequency modulation, they were able to achieve spatial resolution of less than one nanometer for the first time. This work may greatly advance the fields of nanotechnology and photocatalysis.