News by Subject Chemistry & Physics

Atomic-scale optical spectroscopy revealed huge Raman scattering when an atomic point contact is formed between a plasmonic silver tip and a single-crystal silicon surface. The huge Raman scattering allows to observe selectively surface phonons of the single-crystal silicon and to resolve the atomic-scale structures. Atomic point contact Raman scattering paves the way for ultrasensitive atomic-scale vibrational spectroscopy to investigate surface structures.

Like conductors of a spooky symphony, researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have "entangled" two small mechanical drums and precisely measured their linked quantum properties. Entangled pairs like this might someday perform computations and transmit data in large-scale quantum networks.

When light hits certain molecules, it dislodges electrons that then move from one location to another, creating areas of positive and negative charge. This "charge transfer" is highly important in many areas of chemistry, photosynthesis and semiconductor devices and solar cells. A new study reveals how a molecule's structure changes as charge is redistributed, with some chemical bonds getting longer and some shorter, before finally relaxing back into its original state.

Dating early human middens becomes uncertain beyond 50,000 years, when radiocarbon dating ceases to be useful. Uranium-series dating of marine shells and bone is uncertain by some 10% because of the structure of these materials. A UC Berkeley and Berkeley Geochronology Center team has now improved the method for a more stable discard: ostrich eggshells. The method extends the accuracy and precision of radiocarbon 10 times into the past, to about 500,000 years ago.

The ability to turn on and off a physical process with just one photon is a fundamental building block for quantum photonic technologies. Realizing this in a chip-scale architecture is important for scalability, which amplifies a breakthrough by CCNY researchers led by physicist Vinod Menon. They've demonstrated for the first time the use of "Rydberg states" in solid state materials (previously shown in cold atom gases) to enhance nonlinear optical interactions to unprecedented levels in solid state systems.

3D printing has opened up a completely new range of possibilities. One example is the production of novel turbine buckets. However, the 3D printing process often induces internal stress in the components which can in the worst case lead to cracks. Now a research team has succeeded in using neutrons from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) research neutron source for non-destructive detection of this internal stress - a key achievement for the improvement of the production processes.

Researchers at Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART) and National University of Singapore (NUS) have discovered a new way to control light emission from materials. While recent discoveries focused on manipulation of atomically-thin 2D materials, the new breakthrough can be used to stack technologically-relevant 3D materials at a twist angle. The discovery can be significant for applications in medicine, environmental or information technologies.

Using machine learning methods, researchers at TU Graz can predict the structure formation of functionalized molecules at the interfaces of hybrid materials. Now they have also succeeded in looking behind the driving forces of this structure formation.