The National Academy of Sciences elected three members of Penn State s faculty to its membership, one of the highest honors given to a scientist or engineer in the United States. Nina Jablonski, Evan Pugh University Professor of Anthropology; Jainendra K. Jain, Evan Pugh University Professor and Erwin W. Mueller Professor of Physics; and Peter Mészáros, Eberly Chair Professor, emeritus, of Astronomy and Astrophysics, have been recognized for their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.
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IMAGE: Thanks to the technology developed by the team of prof. Juan Carlos
Colmenares, it is easy to create materials that, under the sunlight, can
effectively capture toxic compounds from the environment and. view more
Credit: Source: IPC PAS, Grzegorz Krzyzewski
We live in times when among the most limited and precious resources on Earth are air and water. No matter the geographical location, the pollution spreads quickly, negatively affecting even the purest regions like Mount Everest. Thus, anthropogenic activity decreases the quality of the environment, making it harmful for flora and fauna. Current waste treatment methods are not sufficient, so novel and effective methods for maximizing pollutants removal are highly needed. One of the robust and prosperous solutions that make it possible to degrade various highly toxic chemicals from air and water is based on nanotechnology. Nanomaterials offer unique physicochemical properties, establishing them capa
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IMAGE: In experiments with SLAC s X-ray free-electron laser, scientists knocked electrons out of a molecule known as DMP to make the first detailed observations of how a process called charge transfer. view more
Credit: Greg Stewart/ SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory
When light hits certain molecules, it dislodges electrons that then move from one location to another, creating areas of positive and negative charge. This charge transfer is highly important in many areas of chemistry, in biological processes like photosynthesis and in technologies like semiconductor devices and solar cells.
Even though theories have been developed to explain and predict how charge transfer works, they have been validated only indirectly because of the difficulty of observing how a molecule s structure responds to charge movements with the required atomic resolution and on the required ultrafast time scales.
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IMAGE: The model predicts a remarkably high superconducting critical temperature of 21 K in the easily exfoliable, topologically nontrivial 2D semimetal W2N3. view more
Credit: Davide Campi @EPFL
Superconductivity in two-dimensional (2D) systems has attracted much attention in recent years, both because of its relevance to our understanding of fundamental physics and because of potential technological applications in nanoscale devices such as quantum interferometers, superconducting transistors and superconducting qubits.
The critical temperature (Tc), or the temperature under which a material acts as a superconductor, is an essential concern. For most materials, it is between absolute zero and 10 Kelvin, that is, between -273 Celsius and -263 Celsius, too cold to be of any practical use. Focus has then been on finding materials with a higher Tc.
Researchers at Tampere University Photonics Laboratory have demonstrated how two interfering photons can bunch into various shapes. These complex shapes are beneficial for quantum technologies, such as performing fast photonic quantum computations and safe data transfer. The method opens new possibilities also for creating enhanced measurement and sensing techniques.