"What we see here is energy transfer that is much faster than in any semiconductor," says Jakob Heier. The physicist works in Empa's Functional Polymers lab, and the discovery he has made with his team could cause a stir ...
Materials Science
Jul 13, 2021
0
334
The fabrication device for the battery revolution looks quite unconspicuous: It is a modified, commercially available 3D printer, located in a room in the Empa laboratory building. But the real innovation lies within the ...
Materials Science
Jun 3, 2021
1
171
An international team led by Empa and ETH Zurich researchers is playing with shape-engineered nanoscale building blocks that are up to 100-times larger than atoms and ions. And although these nano "Lego bricks" interact with ...
Materials Science
May 27, 2021
1
24
Wherever scientists look, they can spot them: whether in remote mountain lakes, in Arctic sea ice, in the deep-ocean floor or in air samples, even in edible fish—thousands upon thousands of microscopic plastic particles ...
Bio & Medicine
May 4, 2021
1
609
The magnetic interactions between atoms at minute scales can create unique states such as skyrmions. Skyrmions have special properties and can exist in certain material systems, such as a 'stack' of different sub-nanometer-thick ...
General Physics
Dec 21, 2020
0
165
Researchers at Empa and ETH Zurich succeeded in developing a material that works like a luminescent solar concentrator and can even be applied to textiles. This opens up numerous possibilities for producing energy directly ...
Nanophysics
Oct 22, 2020
0
139
Aerogel is an excellent thermal insulator. So far, however, it has mainly been used on a large scale, for example in environmental technology, in physical experiments or in industrial catalysis. Empa researchers have now ...
Materials Science
Aug 20, 2020
1
136
Electric motors and electronic devices generate electromagnetic fields that sometimes have to be shielded in order not to affect neighboring electronic components or the transmission of signals. High-frequency electromagnetic ...
Nanomaterials
Jul 2, 2020
5
2749
A research team from Empa and EPFL has developed a molecular motor which consists of only 16 atoms and rotates reliably in one direction. It could allow energy harvesting at the atomic level. The special feature of the motor ...
General Physics
Jun 16, 2020
1
1789
It looks quite inconspicuous to the casual beholder, hardly like groundbreaking innovation: a small metallic chessboard, four millimeters long on either side. At first glance, it shines like polished steel; at second glance, ...
Materials Science
Jun 12, 2020
1
190
