Ytterbium thin-disk lasers pave the way for sensitive detection of atmospheric pollutants

The laser's capacity to generate high-power, stable pulses in the SWIR range is a game-changer for field-resolved spectroscopy and femtosecond fieldoscopy

19-Nov-2024 - Alongside carbon dioxide, methane is a key driver of global warming. To detect and monitor the climate pollutants in the atmosphere precisely, scientists at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light (MPL) have developed an advanced laser technology. A high-power ytterbium thin-disk laser ...

Mirror image molecules reveal drought stress in forests

Ecosystem changes can be more accurately predicted by emissions of chiral compounds

09-Sep-2022 - Worldwide, plants emit about 100 million tonnes of monoterpenes into the atmosphere each year. These volatile organic molecules include many fragrances such as the molecule pinene – known for its pine fresh scent. Since these molecules are highly reactive and can form tiny aerosol particles that ...

Highly Accurate Results at Low Computational Cost

Researchers Succeed in Predicting NMR Parameters with DLPNO Approximation

20-May-2021 - Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) is one of the most important analytical techniques used in chemical, pharmaceutical, and biomedical research as well as in materials sciences. It provides detailed information about the structures of molecules in solution, which is, however, indirect. Hence, ...

Ice on gold

Breakthrough in material science: analysing frozen water atom by atom

09-Dec-2020 - How to analyse ice down to its atomic scale? And how to analyse objects embedded in ice without melting it? An international team of material scientists mainly from the Max-Planck-Institut für Eisenforschung (MPIE) found a way to analyse micron-thick layers of ice by atom probe tomography (APT) ...

Multiyear Tracking of Atmospheric Radicals

New method derive both short-lived atmospheric hydroxyl and chlorine radical concentrations over several years

13-Sep-2018 - Hydroxyl radicals (OH) keep our atmosphere clean. They react away toxic gases such as carbon monoxide (CO), and slow climate warming by removing greenhouse gases like methane (CH4). In some parts of the atmosphere, chlorine radicals (Cl) can also help this purification process, for example in the ...

Viewing a catalytic reaction in action

Researchers monitors the steps of a chemical reaction mediated by a metallic surface

06-May-2016 - To be able to follow and directly visualize how the structure of molecules changes when they undergo complex chemical transformations has been a long-standing goal of chemistry. While reaction intermediates are particularly difficult to identify and characterize due to their short lifetimes, ...

Bleach in the Icelandic Volcanic Cloud

Chlorine in the ash plume of the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökull attacked atmospheric trace gases

31-May-2011 - One year after the Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland brought European air traffic to a standstill its ash plume revealed a surprising scientific finding: Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz found that the ash plume contained not only the common volcanic gas sulfur ...

The Amazon rainforest -- a cloud factory

22-Sep-2010 - The forest in the Amazon Basin produces its own rain. During the wet season, aerosol particles, which serve to condensate clouds and precipitation here, mainly consist of organic material. These aerosols are released by the rainforest itself. This has been demonstrated by scientists from the Max ...

Max Planck Innovation awards license for actin marker LifeAct

Max Planck Innovation and ibidi sign license agreement for cytoskeleton research

28-Jul-2010 - Max Planck Innovation GmbH, the technology transfer organization of the Max Planck Society, has awarded an exclusive license for LifeAct to ibidi GmbH, a provider of cell analysis products, located in Martinsried near Munich. The novel peptide allows for actin, an important protein, to be made ...

Scientists develop new method to identify glycosylated proteins

02-Jun-2010 - Various processes in our body are controlled by subsequent changes of proteins. Therefore, the identification of such modifications is essential for the further exploration of our organism. Now, scientists of the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry in Martinsried, Germany, have made a crucial ...