NEWSROOM

Every chemical reaction faces a barrier: for substances to react with one another, it is first necessary to supply energy. In many cases, this energy barrier is low – such as when striking a match. For many key reactions in industry, however, it is much larger – and increased energy requirements drive up production costs. To lower this barrier, chemists use “reaction helpers” known as catalysts. The best of these substances contain metals – including, in some cases, rare meta

Scientists at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have developed a new way to determine atomic structures from nanocrystals previously considered unusable, a breakthrough that could transform how researchers study materials too small or imperfect for conventional crystallography. Crystalline materials have enabled advances in computing, communications, energy technologies, and pharmaceuticals. Many of these materials’ unique proper

In 2024, researchers in the Laboratory of Nanoscience for Energy Technology (LNET) in EPFL’s School of Engineering reported a platform for studying the hydrovoltaic (HV) effect – a phenomenon that allows electricity to be harvested when fluid is passed over the charged surface of a nanodevice. Their platform consisted of a hexagonal network of silicon nanopillars, the space between which created channels for evaporating fluid samples. Now the LNET team, led by Giulia Tagliab

Researchers at Delft University of Technology have demonstrated for the first time that even realistic, small amounts of disorder in modern quantum simulators can cause the system to exhibit completely different physical behaviour. Quantum simulators play a central role in the development of future quantum technologies, including quantum computers and advanced materials design. For these technologies to work reliably, we must understand how sensitive they are to imperfections

A new study by NYU chemists finds that DNA tiles can assemble into 3D structures without the sticky cohesion of hydrogen bonding. This finding, published in Nature Communications, turns a fundamental paradigm in the field of DNA self-assembly on its head.

Vancouver, March 2026 — Nano One Materials Corp. has received $3 million in funding from Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) to accelerate the development and commercial scale-up of its lithium iron phosphate (LFP) cathode materials. The funding, which runs through March 2028, will support optimization of the company’s patented One-Pot™ process. This innovative technology aims to produce LFP more efficiently, at lower cost, and with greater regional supply chain flexibility comp

Nonreciprocal interactions between light and matter lie at the heart of many exotic physical phenomena, from magnet-free optical isolation to axion-inspired electrodynamics. One particularly intriguing example is the Tellegen effect, a nonreciprocal magnetoelectric coupling predicted more than 75 years ago but long considered weak and negligible at optical frequencies. “In natural materials, the optical Tellegen effect is extraordinarily weak, making it challenging to observe

Strange things happen to materials when you peel them down, layer by layer, from thick chunks all the way to sheets just an atom thick. Reporting in the journal Nature Materials, a team led by physicists at The University of Texas at Austin has experimentally demonstrated a sequence of exotic magnetic phases in an ultrathin material that for the first time fully realize a theoretical model of two-dimensional magnetism first proposed in the 1970s. The researchers say the advan

Air cavities help atom-thin semiconductors shine brighter

Optical waveguide microresonators on a chip created in this effort, which are ten times thinner than human hair. @CU Boulder College of Engineering and Applied Science CU Boulder researchers have built high performing optical microresonators opening the door for new sensor technologies. At its simplest form, a microresonator is a tiny device that can trap light and build up its intensity. Once the intensity is high enough, researchers can perform unique light operations. “O

For the first time ever, researchers prove that atomic vibrations can transfer orbital angular momentum directly to electrons in a non-magnetic material with chiral symmatry, the most streamlined system yet in the exciting new field of ‘orbitronics’