Molecules in collective ecstasy Molecules in collective ecstasy Empa Empa Like matches in a box, dye molecules line up at the phase boundaries of a bicontinuous emulsion. This is the only way for signal transmission to succeed. Zoom in ").addClass("image-details"); var $imageCaption = $("").addClass("image-caption").text(caption); $imageDetails.append($imageCaption); element = $(" ").append('×').append($imageHolder).append($imageDetails)[0]; img.draggable = false; if (title) { element.title = title; } if (altText) { element.alt = altText; } $(img).on("load error", callbackWrapper); img.src = url; return element; } When fluorescent dye molecules nestle perfectly together, something completely new is created: an excited state distributed over many molecules. Such collective excitations can be used in a variety of ways – for organic solar panels, in sensors, for ultrafast data transmission or in microscopy, for example. Empa researchers, together with colleagues from ETH Zurich, EPFL, the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) and IBM Research Zurich, have succeeded in making such chemical light amplifiers ten times more efficient than before.