IN the ideal crystal, graphite consists of infinite sheets of fused aromatic rings, packed in parallel and with hexagonal symmetry of the atoms. Actual crystals of graphite show various types of ...

Quantum engineers have spent years trying to tame the fragility of qubits, only to be thwarted by the tiniest imperfections in the materials they use. Now a new line of research flips that problem on ...

Researchers have explored a 'quantum-inspired' technique to make the 'ones' and 'zeroes' for classical computer memory applications out of crystal defects, each the size of an individual atom. This ...

If we are to prevent the impending environmental crisis, it is imperative that we find efficient and sustainable ways to avoid being wasteful. One area with much room for improvement is the recycling ...

A crystal used in the study charges under UV light. The process created by the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering Zhong Lab could be used with a variety of materials, ...

Using hard X-ray photoemission spectroscopy, researchers revealed how oxygen vacancies and structural disorder influence subgap state formation. The figure shows the InGaZnO 4 crystal structure, the ...

Order doesn’t always form perfectly—and those imperfections can be surprisingly powerful. In materials like liquid crystals, tiny “defects” emerge when symmetry breaks, shaping everything from cosmic ...