An AI leap into chemical synthesis

AI navigates and performs chemical research tasks with unprecedented efficiency

13-May-2024 - Chemistry, with its intricate processes and vast potential for innovation, has always been a challenge for automation. Traditional computational tools, despite their advanced capabilities, often remain underutilized due to their complexity and the specialized knowledge required to operate ...

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 ...

Changing direction: Research team discovers switchable electronic chirality in an achiral Kagome superconductor

14-Oct-2022 - An international research team led by the Department of Microstructured Quantum Matter at the MPSD reports the first observation of switchable chiral transport in a structurally achiral crystal, the Kagome superconductor CsV₃Sb₅. Its work has been published in Nature. Whether or not an object is ...

Researchers discover a material that can learn like the brain

24-Aug-2022 - EPFL researchers have discovered that Vanadium Dioxide (VO2), a compound used in electronics, is capable of “remembering” the entire history of previous external stimuli. This is the first material to be identified as possessing this property, although there could be others. Mohammad Samizadeh ...

"Simulation microscope" examines transistors of the future

"We have created one of the largest databases of transistor materials"

12-Aug-2020 - Since the discovery of graphene, two-​dimensional materials have been the focus of materials research. Among other things, they could be used to build tiny, high-​performance transistors. Researchers at ETH Zurich and EPF Lausanne have now simulated and evaluated one hundred possible materials ...

Photoelectrochemical water-splitting efficiency hits 4.5%

20-Jan-2020 - Photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting for hydrogen fuel generation has been considered the Holy Grail of electrochemistry. But to achieve it, many scientists believe the materials have to be abundant and low cost. The most promising oxide photocathodes are cuprous oxide (Cu2O) ...

A nanotech sensor that turns molecular fingerprints into bar codes

11-Jun-2018 - Infrared spectroscopy is the benchmark method for detecting and analyzing organic compounds. But it requires complicated procedures and large, expensive instruments, making device miniaturization challenging and hindering its use for some industrial and medical applications and for data ...

A treasure trove for nanotechnology experts

08-Mar-2018 - 2D materials, which consist of a few layers of atoms, may well be the future of nanotechnology. They offer potential new applications and could be used in small, higher-performance and more energy-efficient devices. 2D materials were first discovered almost 15 years ago, but only a few dozen of ...

3-D imaging of surface chemistry in confinement

24-Jul-2017 - EPFL researchers have developed an optical imaging tool to visualize surface chemistry in real time. They imaged the interfacial chemistry in the microscopically confined geometry of a simple glass micro-capillary. The glass is covered with hydroxyl (-OH) groups that can lose a proton - a ...

New discovery: Nanometric imprinting on fiber

26-Jan-2017 - Researchers at EPFL's Laboratory of Photonic Materials and Fibre Devices, which is run by Fabien Sorin, have come up with a simple and innovative technique for drawing or imprinting complex, nanometric patterns on hollow polymer fibers. The potential applications of this breakthrough are ...