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Light is fast, but travels in long wavelengths and interacts weakly with itself. The particles that make up matter are tiny and interact strongly with each other, but move slowly. Together, the two can combine into a hybrid quasiparticle called a polariton that is part light, part matter. In a new paper published today in Chem, a team of Columbia chemists has identified how to combine matter and light to get the best of both worlds: polaritons with strong interactions and fa

University at Buffalo researchers are theorizing that core electron bonding may not always require as much pressure as previously thought. In fact, for some elements, it may only take the atmospheric pressure you’re experiencing right now on the Earth’s surface. The researchers’ quantum chemical calculations, described in a study published in this month’s issue of the Journal of the American Chemical Society, revealed insights on the semicore electrons of alkali metals, a gro

PFAS are fluorinated compounds found in many everyday products, such as outdoor clothing and cookware like Teflon pans. This is because PFAS are durable, heat-resistant and dirt-repellent. Their stability is precisely what leads to problems: although potentially harmful to our health, these substances are scarcely broken down at all in the environment and are regarded as ‘forever chemicals’. PFAS are also found in wastewater. Although they can be removed by filtration, this i

Using a combination of spectromicroscopy at BESSY II and microscopic analyses at DESY's NanoLab, a team has gained new insights into the chemical behaviour of nanocatalysts during catalysis. The nanoparticles consisted of a platinum core with a rhodium shell. This configuration allows a better understanding of structural changes in, for example, rhodium-platinum catalysts for emission control. The results show that under typical catalytic conditions, some of the rhodium in th

Chirality, or "handedness," is a fundamental property of objects, from galaxies to molecules, and plays a crucial role in biological systems. However, chiral compounds in living organisms such as sugars and amino acids, exist almost exclusively in a single form. This phenomenon, known as "biological homochirality," has long puzzled scientists, and its underlying mechanism remains elusive. Understanding how a preference for one chiral form over the other arises is crucial for

Gold is considered one of the most unreactive metals. However, under pressure conditions such as those found in the Earth's interior, something happens to the precious metal. Researchers at the High Energy Density (HED) experimental station at European XFEL compressed gold to over 40 gigapascals (GPa) using a diamond stamp cell and heated it to around 2,500 degrees Celsius with ultra-short flashes from the European XFEL X-ray laser. Under these conditions, the gold reacted wi