New method in the fight against forever chemicals

Researchers are for the first time using a technology known as “piezocatalysis”

17-Sep-2024 - Researchers at ETH Zurich have developed a new way to break down a dangerous subgroup of PFAS known as PFOS. With the help of nanoparticles and ultrasound, piezocatalysis could offer an effective alternative to existing processes in the future. What do firefighting foam, non-stick cookware, ...

Two-dimensional quantum freeze

New opportunities for the design of ultra-sensitive sensors

09-Mar-2023 - Researchers at ETH Zurich and TII Abu Dhabi, with the support of quantum optics theorists from Innsbruck, Austria, have succeeded in simultaneously cooling the motion of a tiny glass sphere in two dimensions to the quantum ground-state. This represents a crucial step towards a 3D ground-state ...

3D-snapshots of nanoparticles

The crucial point is that the snapshots acn be taken in free flight

07-Mar-2023 - ETH researchers have managed to take three-​dimensional pictures of single nanoparticles using extremely short and strong X-​ray pulses. In the future this technique could even be used to make 3D-​movies of dynamical processes at the nanoscale. X-​ray diffraction has been used for more than a ...

A twin pack of cooled nanoparticles

This opens up various possibilities to study quantum phenomena of such particles or to build highly sensitive sensors

23-Nov-2022 - Researchers at ETH have developed a technique to cool several nanoparticles simultaneously to temperatures of just a few thousandths of a degree above absolute zero. This new method can be used to study quantum effects of several nanoparticles and to build highly sensitive sensors. Over the past ...

Light amplification accelerates chemical reactions in aerosols

Temporal sequence of photochemical reaction in individual aerosol particles observed with high resolution

21-Apr-2022 - Aerosols in the atmosphere react to incident sunlight. This light is amplified in the interior of the aerosol droplets and particles, accelerating reactions. ETH researchers have now been able to demonstrate and quantify this effect and recommend factoring it into future climate models. Liquid ...

Microcavities as a sensor platform

New concept for a high-precision quantum sensor

08-Apr-2022 - Sensors are a pillar of the Internet of Things, providing the data to control all sorts of objects. Here, precision is essential, and this is where quantum technologies could make a difference. Researchers in Innsbruck and Zurich are now demonstrating how nanoparticles in tiny optical resonators ...

New photocatalyst made from an aerogel for more efficient hydrogen production

Airy and efficient

02-Dec-2021 - Researchers at ETH Zurich have developed a new photocatalyst made from an aerogel that could enable more efficient hydrogen production. The key is sophisticated pretreatment of the material. Aerogels are extraordinary materials that have set Guinness World Records more than a dozen times, ...

Nanoplastics – an underestimated problem?

Tiny plastic particles in the environment

06-May-2021 - The images leave no one cold: giant vortices of floating plastic trash in the world's oceans with sometimes devastating consequences for their inhabitants – the sobering legacy of our modern lifestyle. Weathering and degradation processes produce countless tiny particles that can now be detected ...

Efficient removal of problem substances

Many wastewater treatment plants do not completely remove chemical substances from wastewater.

21-May-2019 - Microcontaminants place a considerable burden on our water courses, but removing them from wastewater requires considerable technical resources. Now, ETH researchers have developed an approach that allows the efficient removal of these problematic substances. In our everyday lives, we all use a ...

Cooling with light

07-May-2019 - ETH researchers have cooled a nanoparticle to a record low temperature, thanks to a sophisticated experimental set-up that uses scattered laser light for cooling. Until now, no one has ever cooled a nanoparticle to such low temperatures in a photon cage: Dominik Windey and René Reimann – a ...