For the first time, researchers place an electron in a dual state – neither freed nor bound

Phys.org  April 16, 2018 An international team of researchers (Switzerland, Germany, Spain) controlled the shape of the laser pulse to keep an electron both free and bound to its nucleus and regulate the electronic structure of the atom. They made these unusual states amplify laser light and identified a no-go area, nicknamed “Death Valley,” where they lost all their power over the electron. These results shatter the usual concepts related to the ionisation of matter. The discovery gives the option of creating new atoms dressed by the field of the laser, with new electron energy levels. This will play a […]

Crash! Scientists explain what happens when nanoparticles collide

Eurekalert  April 4, 2018 To understand the forces that control energy transport at the nanoscale, researchers at SUNY Buffalo focused on small nanoparticles — those with diameters of 5 to 15 nanometers. They found that in collisions, particles of this size behave differently depending on their shape. Nanoparticles with crystal facets transfer energy well, making them an ideal component of materials designed to harvest energy; nanoparticles that are rounder in shape, with amorphous surfaces, adhere to nonlinear force laws making them especially useful for shock mitigation; the behavior of nanoparticles with sharp edges varies depending on sharpness of the edges […]

Exotic state of matter: An atom full of atoms

Science Daily  February 26, 2018 An international team of researchers (USA – Rice University, MIT, Switzerland, Brazil, Austria, Germany) reports spectroscopic observation of Rydberg polarons in an atomic Bose gas. Polarons are created by excitation of Rydberg atoms as impurities in a strontium Bose-Einstein condensate. As computer simulations show, this comparatively weak kind of interaction decreases the total energy of the system, and so a bond between the Rydberg atom and the other atoms inside the electronic orbit is created. This new, weakly bound state of matter is an exciting new possibility of investigating the physics of ultracold atoms… read […]