Improved analysis of silicon surfaces

Progress for photovoltaics, for example

03-Apr-2025 - A new method for analyzing rough silicon surfaces combines atomic force microscopy (AFM) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). This makes it easier to correct errors caused by surface roughness. The method delivers more precise results, particularly with black silicon, a special, ...

Analyze odorous substances without errors

Comparative study confirms established method as gold standard

18-Feb-2025 - When analyzing odorants in foods or their raw materials, the formation of artefacts can significantly distort the results. Two researchers from the Leibniz Institute for Food Systems Biology at the Technical University of Munich have now shown in a new comparative study that the choice of ...

Innovations for Health: When Molecular Spectroscopy Meets Lasers and Photonics

"An all-optical, minimally invasive and label-free diagnostic tool could represent a significant advance in health..."

17-Feb-2025 - A team led by DESY scientist Tim Laarmann has successfully detected the vibrational fingerprints of glucose molecules in aqueous solution using a nonlinear optical method in the mid-infrared spectral range called ultra-broadband vibrational sum-frequency generation (VSFG) spectroscopy. The ...

How cryogenic microscopy could help strengthen food security

Scientists produced unprecedented images

21-Jan-2025 - According to the United Nations, soil salinization affects between 20% and 40% of arable land globally, with human activity and climate change – especially rising sea levels – largely responsible for this process. While the human body needs sodium to function, this is not the case for most ...

How machine learning can help predict the spectral properties of materials

07-Jan-2025 - Many techniques in computational materials science require scientists to identify the right set of parameters that capture the physics of the specific material they are studying. Calculating these parameters from scratch is sometimes possible but costs a lot of time and computational power. ...

Scientists use harmless viruses to investigate the nervous system in frogs

New era in amphibian biology

28-Nov-2024 - Amphibians hold a significant place in evolution, representing the transition from aquatic to terrestrial lifestyles. They are crucial for understanding the brain and spinal cord of tetrapods—animals with four limbs, including humans. A group of scientists led by a team at the Institute of ...

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 ...

Optical measurement of forces in plastics

Fascinating "molecular springs": research team develops dyes that quantitatively indicate stresses in plastics

07-Nov-2024 - Under the leadership of Prof. Dr. Michael Sommer, Chair of Polymer Chemistry at Chemnitz University of Technology, a research team has succeeded in constructing various dye molecules from the field of so-called mechanophores and using them to quantitatively display molecular stresses. With the ...

Towards new reaction pathways

Insights on molecular dynamics in the ultrashort time window following UV excitation

30-Oct-2024 - The Attosecond Science group at the Center for Free-Electron Laser Science at DESY has developed a novel light source capable of producing extremely short pulses for the investigation of UV-induced molecular dynamics with unprecedented temporal resolution. Scientists from DESY and the University ...

Start-up receives funding for animal-free methods for drug testing

Ethically safe, fast, cost-effective and reliable

09-Oct-2024 - InnoZell, a spin-off of the University of Konstanz, receives "Go-Bio Initial" funding from the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). The spin-off of Clovis Hugues Seumen Tiogang focuses on innovations in the field of cell research. The idea behind InnoZell is to offer animal-free ...