NEWSROOM

For several decades, a central puzzle in quantum physics has remained unsolved: Could electrons behave like a perfect, frictionless fluid with electrical properties described by a universal quantum number? This unique property of electrons has been extremely difficult to detect in any material so far because of the presence of atomic defects, impurities, and imperfections in the material. Researchers at the Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Science (IISc), along with

Nanoporous metal oxides have a wide variety of applications, such as catalysts, electrodes, energy materials, sensors, and biomaterials. Recently, a team of researchers has demonstrated a novel synthesis method for their efficient and desirable preparation. Specifically, they prepared difficult-to-prepare quasi-single-crystalline inverse opal α-Fe2O3, demonstrating that crystal growth occurs in nanospace due to volatilization and oxidation of metal chlorides. This technology

A team of scientists from Korea and Japan has discovered a new type of crystal that can "breathe"—releasing and absorbing oxygen repeatedly at relatively low temperatures. This unique ability could transform the way we develop clean energy technologies, including fuel cells, energy-saving windows, and smart thermal devices. The newly developed material is a special kind of metal oxide made of strontium, iron, and cobalt. What makes it extraordinary is that it can release oxyg

New research uncovered a link between properties of graphite and how the material behaves in response to radiation. It seems like after graphite is irradiated for so long, it starts recovering.

An international team led by Dr. Tristan Petit and Prof. Yury Gogotsi has investigated MXene with confined water and ions at BESSY II. In the MXene samples, a transition between localised ice clusters to quasi-two-dimensional water films was identified by increasing temperature. The team also discovered that the intercalated water structure drives a reversible transition from metallic to semiconducting behaviour of the MXene film. This could enable the development of novel de

What occurs during the melting process in two-dimensional systems at the microscopic level? Researchers at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) have explored this phenomenon in thin magnetic layers. "By utilizing skyrmions, i.e., miniature magnetic vortices, we were able to directly observe, for the first time, the transition of a two-dimensional ordered lattice structure into a disordered state at the microscopic level in real time," explained Raphael Gruber, who conduc