News by Subject Chemistry & Physics

For the first time, researchers have been able to record, frame-by-frame, how an electron interacts with certain atomic vibrations in a solid. The technique, reported in Science, captures a process that commonly causes electrical resistance in materials while, in others, can cause the absence of resistance, or superconductivity.

ICFO researchers report on a new ultrafast stimulated emission microscopy technique that allows imaging of nano-objects and investigating their dynamics.

The researchers from Peter the Great St.Petersburg Polytechnic University and Institute of Problems of Mechanical Engineering of the Russian Academy of Sciences studied the distribution of hydrogen in metals in the process of standard testing for hydrogen cracking. They found that there is a surface effect that does not let hydrogen enter the metal. This can result in errors in industrial quality control of material, and to fundamental errors in terms of scientific research of hydrogen embrittlement.

The creation of photoelectrons through ionisation is one of the most fundamental processes in the interaction between light and matter. Yet, deep questions remain about just how photons transfer their linear momentum to electrons. With the first sub-femtosecond study of the linear photon momentum transfer during an ionisation process, physicists at ETH Zurich provide now unprecedented insight into the birth of photoelectrons.

Nuclear physics usually involves high energies, as illustrated by experiments to master controlled nuclear fusion. One problem is how to overcome the strong electrical repulsion between atomic nuclei which requires high energies to make them fuse. But fusion could be initiated at lower energies with electromagnetic fields that are generated by state-of-the-art free electron lasers emitting X-ray light. Researchers at Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) describe how this could be done in the journal Physical Review C.