EurekAlert! News by Subject: Chemistry & Physics - News by Subject: Chemistry & Physics

Chemistry & Physics

Updates every hour. Last Updated: 8-May-2025 08:09 ET (8-May-2025 12:09 GMT/UTC)

New discovery shows how molecules can mute heat like music

University of Colorado at Boulder
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Using a thermal sensor smaller than a grain of sand, engineers have measured the vibrations, or phonons, within individual molecules.

Journal: Nature Materials

Scientists discover an unusual chiral quantum state in a topological material

Princeton University, Department of Physics
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Chirality — the property of an object that is distinct from its mirror image — has long captivated scientists across biology, chemistry, and physics. The phenomenon is sometimes called “handedness,” because it refers to an object possessing a distinct left- or right-handed form. It is a universal quality that is found across various scales of nature, from molecules and amino acids to the famed double-helix of DNA and the spiraling patterns of snail shells.

Now, researchers at Princeton University have uncovered a hidden chiral quantum state in a material previously thought to be non-chiral. The finding sheds light on an intense debate within the physics community and expands our understanding of what is possible in the quantum realm.

Journal: Nature Communications

Acidification offers dairies an easy and affordable way to inactivate avian influenza virus H5N1 in raw waste milk

A new pilot study from the University of California, Davis published in the Journal of Dairy Science, demonstrates that simple acidification treatment with citric acid offers an effective, accessible, and easy-to-use alternative to pasteurization to ensure the safety of raw waste milk on farms for both the staff disposing of it and calves consuming it.

Journal: Journal of Dairy Science

Piecing together the brain puzzle

Institute of Science and Technology Austria
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Our brain is a complex organ. Billions of nerve cells are wired in an intricate network, constantly processing signals, enabling us to recall memories or to move our bodies. Making sense of this complicated network requires a precise look into how these nerve cells are arranged and connected. “LICONN”, a new microscopy method developed by scientists at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA) and Google Research, now helps piece together this puzzle. The method, which makes use of off-the-shelf light microscopes, hydrogel and deep learning, was published in Nature.

Journal: Nature
Funder: Austrian Science Fund, Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW), Horizon 2020 Framework Programme, H2020 European Research Council, European Research Council, Gesellschaft für Forschungsförderung NÖ

New UK Multidisciplinary Centre for Neuromorphic Computing to be led by Aston University and funded by EPSRC

Aston University
Grant and Award Announcement

The UK will be getting a new centre to pioneer brain-inspired, energy-efficient computing technologies. The UK Multidisciplinary Centre for Neuromorphic Computing is led by Aston University and will receive £5.6 million over four years from the UKRI Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). The aim of the centre is to become a focal point for networking and collaboration on fundamental research and technology of neuromorphic computing to address the sustainability challenges facing today’s digital infrastructure and artificial intelligence systems.

MIT physicists snap the first images of “free-range” atoms

Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Peer-Reviewed Publication

MIT physicists captured the first images of individual atoms freely interacting in space. The pictures reveal correlations among the “free-range” particles that until now were predicted but never directly observed.

Journal: Physical Review Letters
Funder: U.S. National Science Foundation, Air Force Office of Scientific Research, Army Research Office, DOE/US Department of Energy, Defense Advanced Projects Research Agency, David and Lucile Packard Foundation, MIT Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellowship

Improved modelling of the Pockels effect may help advance optoelectronic technology

National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) MARVEL
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A new article by NCCR MARVEL scientists published in Physical Review B presents a new computational framework to simulate the behavior of tetragonal barium titanate (BTO), a ferroelectric perovskite that can be used as an alternative to silicon in photonic integrated circuits, that use photons instead of electrons to encode and transmit information. The core of the study is the modelling of the Pockels effect, a change in the refractive index of the material in the presence of an electric field that can be used to encode information. The authors, from Mathieu Luisier’s lab at ETH Zurich and Nicola Marzari’s group at EPFL, devised a computational framework that is independent of specific functionals and relies only on standard Density Functional Theory. The results were validated by comparing them to existing experimental results, and to previous calculations based on other computational methods.

Journal: Physical Review B

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