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 new study published in Nature Communications April 7 could reshape the future of magnetic and electronic technology. Scientists at Rice University have discovered how a disappearing electronic pattern in a quantum material ...
Condensed Matter
Apr 9, 2025
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105
Scientists have long sought to unravel the mysteries of strange metals—materials that defy conventional rules of electricity and magnetism. Now, a team of physicists at Rice University has made a breakthrough in this area ...
General Physics
Mar 29, 2025
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260
An international research team from Switzerland, Denmark, Germany, Croatia, Norway, Spain and Japan has made a significant breakthrough in understanding ultrafast electronic dynamics, revealing the profound impact of aqueous ...
Nanophysics
Mar 26, 2025
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26
Metals, as most know them, are good conductors of electricity. That's because the countless electrons in a metal like gold or silver move more or less freely from one atom to the next, their motion impeded only by occasional ...
Condensed Matter
Mar 24, 2025
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141
When light interacts with metallic nanostructures, it instantaneously generates plasmonic hot carriers, which serve as key intermediates for converting optical energy into high-value energy sources such as electricity and ...
Nanophysics
Mar 17, 2025
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Researchers from Würzburg have experimentally demonstrated a quantum tornado for the first time by refining an established method. In the quantum semimetal tantalum arsenide (TaAs), electrons in momentum space behave like ...
Condensed Matter
Mar 10, 2025
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683
From computer chips to image sensors in cameras, today's technology is overwhelmingly based on a semiconductor called silicon. This technology has been shrinking for decades—think of early room-sized computers compared to ...
Condensed Matter
Mar 3, 2025
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61
A team of scientists from Princeton University has measured the energies of electrons in a new class of quantum materials and has found them to follow a fractal pattern. Fractals are self-repeating patterns that occur on ...
Condensed Matter
Feb 26, 2025
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476
A collaborative team of researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Structure and Dynamics of Matter (MPSD), Nanjing University, Songshan Lake Materials Laboratory (SLAB), and international partners has introduced a new ...
Nanophysics
Feb 20, 2025
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195
Electrons oscillate around the nucleus of an atom on extremely short timescales, typically completing a cycle in just a few hundred attoseconds. Because of their ultrafast motions, directly observing electron behavior in ...
Quantum Physics
Feb 19, 2025
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