Atomic and molecular structure as a research area investigates the spatial arrangement, electronic configuration, and intrinsic quantum properties of atoms and molecules, and how these features determine their spectroscopic, chemical, and physical behavior. It encompasses theoretical and computational methods (e.g., ab initio quantum chemistry, density functional theory, configuration interaction) and experimental techniques (e.g., high-resolution spectroscopy, scattering, synchrotron and XFEL-based probes) to resolve electronic states, bonding patterns, potential energy surfaces, and correlation effects. This field underpins understanding of reactivity, photophysics, materials properties, and the design of novel molecules, clusters, and nanostructures with targeted electronic and structural characteristics.
Flip through any chemistry textbook and you'll see drawings of the chemical structure of molecules—where individual atoms are arranged in space and how they're chemically bonded to each other. For decades, chemists could ...
Nanophysics
Oct 29, 2021
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Scientists are working hard to engineer the properties of nanostructures, such as atoms and molecules, to realize efficient logic devices that can operate at the fundamental scale of matter—the scale of atoms. To make "engineering" ...
Nanomaterials
Sep 23, 2021
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In recent years, a group of leading electron microscopy and catalysis researchers have been working to determine the three-dimensional arrangements of atoms in nanoparticle catalysts in chemical processes. Their work has ...
Nanophysics
Aug 19, 2021
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Sometimes, a material's property, such as magnetism and catalysis, can change drastically owing to nothing more than minute changes in the separation between its atoms, commonly referred to as 'local strains' in the parlance ...
Nanomaterials
Jul 13, 2021
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Properties of materials are often defined by imperfections in their atomic structure, especially when the material itself is just one atom thick, such as graphene. Researchers at the University of Vienna have now developed ...
Nanophysics
Jun 18, 2021
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