Breakthrough in Nanotechnology: New Method to Synthesize Amorphous Metal-Organic Frameworks and Coordination Polymers

Innovative research approach enables the development of new materials and applications in technology and medicine

15-Jul-2024 - Researchers at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, led by Prof. Dr. Nicola Pinna, have made a groundbreaking advancement in nanotechnology, successfully extending the well-known Stöber method to synthesize amorphous metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) and coordination polymers (CPs). This innovative ...

New materials: Synthetic pathway for promising nitride compounds discovered

Chemists have successfully synthesized Ruddlesden-Popper nitrides for the first time, opening the door to new materials with unique properties

01-Jul-2024 - Ruddlesden-Popper compounds are a class of materials with a special layered structure that makes them interesting for numerous applications – as superconductors or catalysts, for example, or for use in photovoltaics. There have been many halides and oxides of this structural type before now, but ...

An optical lens that senses gas

Researchers develop optical lens from hybrid glass

28-Jun-2024 - A research team from the University of Jena has developed a small optical lens, only a few millimetres in size, whose refractive behaviour changes in the presence of gas. As reported by the researchers in the journal Nature Communications, this “intelligent” behaviour of the micro-lens is enabled ...

Quantum Annealer Improves Understanding of Quantum Many-Body Systems

27-Jun-2024 - Physicists have long been pursuing the idea of simulating quantum particles with a computer that is itself made up of quantum particles. This is exactly what scientists at Forschungszentrum Jülich have done together with colleagues from Slovenia. They used a quantum annealer to model a real-life ...

In the focus of X-rays: New materials for the energy transition

New Process to Test Materials for the Hydrogen Industry

27-Jun-2024 - Researchers at the Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY have developed a method to rapidly test new materials for the hydrogen industry and analyze their properties down to the atomic level. They were the first to test so-called high-entropy alloys for their corrosion resistance to hydrogen, and ...

Milestone in plasma acceleration: New energy record for next generation proton accelerators

Promising applications in medicine and materials science are getting closer

15-May-2024 - The Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) has made a significant advance in laser plasma acceleration. By employing an innovative method, a research team managed to substantially exceed the previous record for proton acceleration. For the first time, they achieved energies that so far have ...

Innovative computational method unveils high-performance ceramics for extreme environments

Research team identifies hundreds of representatives of a particularly heat-resistant class of materials

31-Jan-2024 - An international research team has developed a method for rapidly discovering new types of materials that function at extremely high temperatures of several thousand degrees Celsius. These high-performance ceramics could one day form the basis for more robust coatings, batteries and ...

A “gold standard” for computational materials science codes

23-Jan-2024 - Physicists and materials scientists can choose from a whole family of computer codes that simulate the behavior of materials and predict their properties. The accuracy of the results obtained by these codes depends on the employed approximations and chosen numerical parameters. To verify that the ...

Focused ion beam technology: a single tool for a wide range of applications

From physics, materials science and chemistry to life sciences and even archaeology

15-Jan-2024 - Processing materials on the nanoscale, producing prototypes for microelectronics or analysing biological samples: The range of applications for finely focused ion beams is huge. Experts from the EU collaboration FIT4NANO have now reviewed the many options and developed a roadmap for the future. ...

Towards energy-efficient brain-like computers

Researchers identify key mechanisms and novel materials for biologically inspired information processing

04-Jan-2024 - Every search engine query, every AI-generated text and developments such as autonomous driving: In the age of artificial intelligence (AI) and big data, computers and data centres consume a lot of energy. By contrast, the human brain is far more energy-efficient. In order to develop more powerful ...