Electronic structure as a research area focuses on the quantum-mechanical description of electrons in atoms, molecules, solids, and nanostructures, and on how this governs their structural, spectroscopic, and transport properties. It encompasses the development and application of theoretical methods such as density functional theory, wavefunction-based quantum chemistry, many-body perturbation theory, and quantum Monte Carlo to compute energies, charge densities, band structures, and excited states. The field underpins predictive materials design, catalysis, electronic and photonic device engineering, and strongly correlated systems research by linking microscopic electron behavior to macroscopic observables and emergent phenomena.
Programmable quantum computers have the potential to efficiently simulate increasingly complex molecular structures, electronic structures, chemical reactions, and quantum mechanical states in chemistry that classical computers ...
Quantum Physics
Oct 14, 2024
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In nature, photosynthesis powers plants and bacteria; within solar panels, photovoltaics transform light into electric energy. These processes are driven by electronic motion and imply charge transfer at the molecular level. ...
Optics & Photonics
Sep 25, 2024
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164
Twenty years ago this October, two physicists at the University of Manchester, Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov, published a groundbreaking paper on the "electric field effect in atomically thin carbon films." Their work ...
Nanomaterials
Sep 23, 2024
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UC Irvine-led research reveals that the optical properties of materials can be dramatically enhanced—not by changing the materials themselves, but by giving the light new properties.
Nanophysics
Sep 20, 2024
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250
Magnetic fields can engineer flat bands in twisted graphene layers to create a new playground for exotic physics, RIKEN physicists have shown.
Condensed Matter
Sep 5, 2024
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120
A research team has introduced a novel method for selectively tuning electronic bands in graphene. Their findings, published in Physical Review Letters, showcase the potential of artificial superlattice fields for manipulating ...
Condensed Matter
Aug 27, 2024
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141
Just a few years ago, researchers discovered that changing the angle between two layers of graphene, an atom-thick sheet of carbon, also changed the material's electronic and optical properties. They then learned that a "twist" ...
Nanophysics
Aug 22, 2024
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147
A research group led by scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory has uncovered details about the formation and behavior of mobile, microscopic, particle-like objects called "excitons" ...
Condensed Matter
Aug 19, 2024
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129
Researchers from Skoltech, Ural Federal University, and Mikheev Institute of Metal Physics, UB RAS, have furnished a fundamental theoretical description of important properties of chemical bonding in materials—namely, the ...
Condensed Matter
Aug 6, 2024
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84
MIT physicists and colleagues report new insights into exotic particles key to a form of magnetism that has attracted growing interest because it originates from ultrathin materials only a few atomic layers thick. The work, ...
General Physics
Aug 1, 2024
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