Spark Award for new corrosion protection

Sprayed on like paint, this polymer can even be peeled off again, recycled and reused

03-Apr-2023 - More effective, reusable and self-​repairing: a new kind of corrosion protection developed by the ETH researchers Marco D'Elia, Walter Caseri und Markus Niederberger has been honoured with ETH Zurich’s Spark Award 2023. The innovation offers excellent market potential and could significantly slow ...

Synthesis at the touch of a button

Almost as simple as making coffee

31-Aug-2022 - In many chemical laboratories, routine chemical syntheses are performed on a daily basis, which takes up a lot of time. ETH spin-​off Synple Chem wants to simplify this with a device that is almost as easy to use as a capsule coffee machine. It’s been a while since bouillon cubes were made in ...

Platelets instead of spheres make screens more economical

23-Jan-2020 - ETH scientists have further developed QLED technology for screens. They have produced light sources that for the first time emit high-​intensity light in only one direction. This reduces scattering losses, which makes the technology extremely energy efficient. QLED screens have been on the market ...

New solar mini-refinery

Carbon-neutral fuel made from sunlight and air: Two spin-offs already founded

17-Jun-2019 - Researchers from ETH Zurich have developed a novel technology that produces liquid hydrocarbon fuels exclusively from sunlight and air. For the first time worldwide they demonstrate the entire thermochemical process chain under real field conditions. The new solar mini-refinery is located on the ...

Artificial magnetic field produces exotic behavior in graphene sheets

04-Dec-2018 - A simple sheet of graphene has noteworthy properties due to a quantum phenomenon in its electron structure named Dirac cones in honor of British theoretical physicist Paul Dirac (1902-1984), who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1933. The system becomes even more interesting if it ...

When nuclei catch up with electrons

18-Apr-2018 - Understanding the dynamics of quantum-mechanical systems on their natural time scale is the main goal in attosecond science. Among the most interesting systems to investigate are molecules, which have a very high degree of complexity, in particular when compared to atomic systems. So far, the few ...

Mastering metastable matter

13-Mar-2018 - Be it snow on a slope that can sit there for days before being sent descending by an overambitious skier or bonds in macromolecules that change dramatically upon appropriate activation -- systems that reside for extended periods of times in one state before switching rapidly to another, ...

Quantum cocktail provides insights on memory control

29-Jan-2018 - The speed of writing and reading out magnetic information from storage devices is limited by the time that it takes to manipulate the data carrier. To speed up these processes, researchers have recently started to explore the use of ultrashort laser pulses that can switch magnetic domains in ...

Extremely bright and fast light emission

12-Jan-2018 - An international team of researchers from ETH Zurich, IBM Research Zurich, Empa and four American research institutions have found the explanation for why a class of nanocrystals that has been intensively studied in recent years shines in such incredibly bright colours. The nanocrystals contain ...

Liquid shock absorbers

10-Nov-2017 - Remarkable liquid materials called colloids stiffen under impact. Researchers funded by the SNSF have studied the effect of powerful impacts such as those produced by firearms or micrometeorites. At first glance, colloids resemble homogeneous liquids such as milk or blood plasma. But in fact ...