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.
A research team has proposed a new design principle for QM/MM (quantum mechanics/molecular mechanics) simulations. The approach enables objective and automatic determination of the quantum-mechanical region based on electronic-state ...
Quantum Physics
Jan 26, 2026
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34
From computers to smartphones, from smart appliances to the internet itself, the technology we use every day only exists thanks to decades of improvements in the semiconductor industry, that have allowed engineers to keep ...
Nanophysics
Jan 26, 2026
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58
What if you could create new materials just by shining a light at them? To most, this sounds like science fiction or alchemy, but to physicists investigating the burgeoning field of Floquet engineering, this is the goal. ...
Condensed Matter
Jan 19, 2026
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1741
A recent study carried out by researchers from EHU, the Materials Physics Center, nanoGUNE, and DIPC introduces a novel approach to solar energy conversion and spintronics. The work tackles a long-standing limitation in the ...
Condensed Matter
Jan 15, 2026
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45
For more than 50 years, scientists have sought alternatives to silicon for building molecular electronics. The vision was elegant; the reality proved far more complex. Within a device, molecules behave not as orderly textbook ...
Nanomaterials
Dec 30, 2025
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146
Altermagnets are a newly recognized class of antiferromagnets whose magnetic structure behaves very differently from what is found in conventional systems. In conventional antiferromagnets, the sublattices are linked by simple ...
Condensed Matter
Dec 26, 2025
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172
The key feature of spintronic devices is their ability to use spin currents to transfer momentum, enabling low-energy, high-speed storage and logical signal control. These devices are usually manipulated by electric currents ...
Condensed Matter
Dec 18, 2025
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119
The Jahn-Teller effect, proposed by Jahn and Teller in 1937, describes how molecules or crystals with degenerate electronic orbitals can lower their total energy by distorting their structure. This distortion lifts the degeneracy, ...
Condensed Matter
Dec 10, 2025
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40
Electrons can be elusive, but Cornell researchers using a new computational method can now account for where they go—or don't go—in certain layered materials.
Condensed Matter
Dec 8, 2025
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90
A novel magnetic material with an extraordinary electronic structure might allow for the production of smaller and more efficient computer chips in the future: the p-wave magnet. Researchers from Karlsruhe Institute of Technology ...
Condensed Matter
Nov 24, 2025
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106
