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.
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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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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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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Researchers at the Institute for Molecular Science (IMS) have definitively resolved a two-decade-long controversy regarding the direction of electron spin on the surface of gold.
Condensed Matter
Nov 18, 2025
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A collaborative European research team led by physicists from Slovak Academy of Sciences has theorized a new approach to control spin currents in graphene by coupling it to a ferroelectric In2Se3 monolayer. Using first-principles ...
Condensed Matter
Nov 14, 2025
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A team of researchers at the Max Born Institute have managed to fully characterize few-femtosecond-long light pulses tunable in the vacuum ultraviolet. These results unlock the possibility for studying valence electron dynamics ...
Optics & Photonics
Nov 7, 2025
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From the burning of wood to the action of medicines, the properties and behavior of matter are governed by the way chemical elements bond with one another. For many of the 118 known elements, the intricate electronic structures ...
General Physics
Nov 3, 2025
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Physicists at the Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter (MPSD) in Hamburg have discovered a striking new form of quantum behavior. In star-shaped Kagome crystals—named after a traditional Japanese ...
Condensed Matter
Oct 30, 2025
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Graphene and its molecular fragments, known as nanographenes, are key materials for next-generation organic electronics due to their tunable π-electron frameworks. The physical and electronic properties of nanographenes are ...
Nanophysics
Oct 28, 2025
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For the first time, a team at BESSY II has succeeded in demonstrating the one-dimensional electronic properties of a material through a highly refined experimental process.
Nanophysics
Oct 21, 2025
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