https://phys.org/ en-us Phys.org internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. The development of highly complex chemical systems, self-assembled by the donor-acceptor and/or noncovalent interactions, lies at the core of supramolecular chemistry. https://phys.org/news/2025-08-method-enables-robust-soft-porous.html Analytical Chemistry Mon, 25 Aug 2025 15:49:03 EDT news675355741 In a world of materials that normally expand upon heating, one that shrinks along one 3-D axis while expanding along another stands out. That's especially true when the unusual shrinkage is linked to a property important for thermoelectric devices, which convert heat to electricity or electricity to heat. https://phys.org/news/2022-05-hidden-distortions-trigger-thermoelectric-property.html Materials Science Tue, 10 May 2022 03:37:07 EDT news571372617 An international team led by the chemist Heinz Langhals of Ludwig-Maximilians Universitaet (LMU) in Munich has succeeded in the molecular deflection of light radiation by means of diamantane. Novel applications such as efficient light collectors or broadband light absorbers are promising. https://phys.org/news/2020-08-molecular-deflection-diamantane.html Materials Science Fri, 14 Aug 2020 08:37:57 EDT news516613075 In a new report published in Science Advances, Sulgiye Park and a research team in geological sciences, materials and energy sciences, advanced research and advanced radiation sources in the U.S. and Beijing, China, developed a carbon-based nanomaterial with exceptional properties. They used new "diamondoids" as a promising precursor to develop laser-induced, high-pressure and high-temperature diamonds. The lowest pressure and temperature conditions to yield diamonds in the study were 12 GPa at approximately 2000 K and 900 K at a pressure of 20 GPa, respectively. The work showed a substantially reduced transformation barrier compared with diamond synthesis using conventional hydrocarbon allotropes. Park et al. credited the observations to structural similarities and the full sp3 hybridization of both diamondoids and bulk diamond. https://phys.org/news/2020-03-carbon-based-nanomaterial-facile-diamond-synthesis.html Nanomaterials Thu, 05 Mar 2020 09:30:02 EST news502621098 It sounds like alchemy: take a clump of white dust, squeeze it in a diamond-studded pressure chamber, then blast it with a laser. Open the chamber and find a new microscopic speck of pure diamond inside. https://phys.org/news/2020-02-substance-fossil-fuels-pure-diamond.html Analytical Chemistry Tue, 25 Feb 2020 08:02:45 EST news501840159 Natural diamond is forged by tremendous pressures and temperatures deep underground. But synthetic diamond can be grown by nucleation, where tiny bits of diamond "seed" the growth of bigger diamond crystals. The same thing happens in clouds, where particles seed the growth of ice crystals that then melt into raindrops. https://phys.org/news/2018-08-scientists-precisely-synthetic-diamonds.html Condensed Matter Fri, 03 Aug 2018 07:31:57 EDT news452500144 Scientists have turned the smallest possible bits of diamond and other super-hard specks into "molecular anvils" that squeeze and twist molecules until chemical bonds break and atoms exchange electrons. These are the first such chemical reactions triggered by mechanical pressure alone, and researchers say the method offers a new way to do chemistry at the molecular level that is greener, more efficient and much more precise. https://phys.org/news/2018-02-tiny-diamond-anvils-trigger-chemical.html Materials Science Wed, 21 Feb 2018 13:00:02 EST news438417967 Amantadine hydrochloride may be the most common medication you've never heard of. This compound has been around for decades as the basis for antiviral and other medications, from flu therapy to treatments for brain disorders such as Parkinson's disease and the fatigue associated with multiple sclerosis. https://phys.org/news/2017-05-nist-aid-production-storage-fascinating.html Materials Science Tue, 02 May 2017 13:00:35 EDT news412948824 (Phys.org)—Researchers from the University of Sheffield report a new continuous-breathing metal-organic framework (MOF), SHF-61, that has two different solvent-specific forms, a narrow-pore structure that is the result of DMF or H2O desolvation and a wide-pore structure that is the result of CHCl3 desolvation. The wide-pore form showed uptake of N2, CO2, and CH4 with selectivity for CO2. They were also able to conduct single-crystal structure analysis of their MOF during breathing motions. Their work appears in Nature Chemistry. https://phys.org/news/2017-03-metal-organic-framework-guest.html Materials Science Wed, 29 Mar 2017 09:30:01 EDT news409984817 Scientists at Stanford University and the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have discovered a way to use diamondoids - the smallest possible bits of diamond - to assemble atoms into the thinnest possible electrical wires, just three atoms wide. https://phys.org/news/2016-12-world-smallest-diamonds-wires-atoms.html Nanophysics Mon, 26 Dec 2016 11:00:08 EST news401966832 When you rub your hands together to warm them, the friction creates heat. The same thing happens during earthquakes, only on a much larger scale: When a fault slips, the temperature can spike by hundreds of degrees, high enough to alter organic compounds in the rocks and leave a signature. A team of scientists at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory has been developing methods to use those organic signatures to reconstruct past earthquakes and explore where those earthquakes started and stopped and how they moved through the fault zone. The information could eventually help scientists better understand what controls earthquakes. https://phys.org/news/2016-12-earthquake-mapstemperature-spikes-clues.html Earth Sciences Fri, 16 Dec 2016 09:55:43 EST news401104534 (Phys.org)—A team of researchers working at Philipps-Universität Marburg, in Germany has created a new kind of material that is able to convert a near-infrared laser beam into a visible beam of light. In their paper published in the journal Science, the team describes the material, how it was made and the possible ways it might be used. https://phys.org/news/2016-06-kind-material-near-infrared-visible.html Optics & Photonics Mon, 13 Jun 2016 07:21:52 EDT news385021280 Stanford and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory jointly run the world's leading program for isolating and studying diamondoids—the tiniest possible specks of diamond. Found naturally in petroleum fluids, these interlocking carbon cages weigh less than a billionth of a billionth of a carat (a carat weighs about the same as 12 grains of rice); the smallest ones contain just 10 atoms. https://phys.org/news/2016-05-precisely-flawed-nanodiamonds-next-generation-tools.html Nanophysics Thu, 12 May 2016 08:40:03 EDT news382260595 Sixty-six million years ago an asteroid smashed into Earth releasing energy equivalent to 100 million nuclear bombs and creating a massive dust cloud that blocked out the sun for more than a year. https://phys.org/news/2016-05-scientists-dinosaur-era-asteroid-crater.html Earth Sciences Wed, 11 May 2016 07:48:52 EDT news382171723 They sound like futuristic weapons, but electron guns are actually workhorse tools for research and industry: They emit streams of electrons for electron microscopes, semiconductor patterning equipment and particle accelerators, to name a few important uses. https://phys.org/news/2015-12-scientists-layer-tiny-diamonds-electron.html Nanophysics Thu, 10 Dec 2015 09:40:12 EST news368962811 The inner space of carbon nanotubes can act as a template for the synthesis of nanodiamond-like carbon chains. As a team of scientists from Japan, Germany, and the United States report in the journal Angewandte Chemie, this templated polymerization approach paves the way for the design of novel one-dimensional nanomaterials. https://phys.org/news/2015-09-polymerization-carbon-cage-linear-diamond-like.html Nanomaterials Wed, 02 Sep 2015 09:00:06 EDT news360400286 Contaminated samples have evidently created some confusion in the timetable of life. On the basis of ultra-clean analyses, an international team, including scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, has disproved supposed evidence that eukaryotes originated 2.5 to 2.8 billion years ago. In contrast to prokaryotes such as bacteria, eukaryotes have a nucleus. Some researchers thought they had discovered molecular remnants of living organisms in rock samples up to 2.8 billion years old. However, as the current study shows, these molecular traces were introduced by contamination. The oldest evidence for the existence of eukaryotes is now provided by microfossils that are ca. 1.5 billion years old. https://phys.org/news/2015-06-timetable-eukaryotic-evolution.html Earth Sciences Tue, 02 Jun 2015 09:50:03 EDT news352456203 A new carbon nanomaterial – the thinnest possible one-dimensional thread that still retains a diamond-like structure – was created by the controlled, slow compression and decompression of benzene. The diamond-like structural unit consists of six-sided rings of carbon atoms bonded together in chains surrounded by a halo of hydrogen atoms. https://phys.org/news/2015-05-carbon-nanothreads-compressed-benzene.html Nanomaterials Wed, 20 May 2015 10:40:01 EDT news351332318 A newly synthesized molecule reveals exceptional electronic properties. The results of this study led by researchers from Université catholique de Louvain (Belgium) and from Stanford University California are published in Nature Communications. https://phys.org/news/2014-09-molecule-diode-era-sustainable-miniature.html Nanophysics Tue, 09 Sep 2014 09:25:06 EDT news329473500 Scientists have married two unconventional forms of carbon – one shaped like a soccer ball, the other a tiny diamond – to make a molecule that conducts electricity in only one direction. This tiny electronic component, known as a rectifier, could play a key role in shrinking chip components down to the size of molecules to enable faster, more powerful devices. https://phys.org/news/2014-09-buckyballs-diamondoids-tiny-electronic-gadget.html Nanophysics Tue, 09 Sep 2014 06:34:43 EDT news329463259 (Phys.org) —Carbon-based nanomaterials have unique properties that make them useful for many technical applications, including lightweight construction, electronics, energy generation, environmental technology, and medicine. In the journal Angewandte Chemie, an international team of researchers has now introduced a new process for the production of especially fine carbon nanowires from carbon in the diamond configuration. In this process, molecules with a diamond-like structure are linked together inside a carbon nanotube. https://phys.org/news/2013-03-carbon-nanowires-tempering-diamantane-dicarboxylic.html Nanomaterials Wed, 06 Mar 2013 11:20:01 EST news281788293 (Phys.org)—Coating the surface of a material with a single layer of diamond-like crystals greatly improves images of it taken with an electron microscope, according to a study led by scientists at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford University. https://phys.org/news/2012-11-diamond-like-coating-electron-microscope-images.html General Physics Fri, 30 Nov 2012 10:35:44 EST news273494135 (PhysOrg.com) -- The strength of a chemical bond between atoms is the fundamental basis for a molecule’s stability and reactivity. Tuning the strength and accessibility of the bond can dramatically change a molecule’s properties. For example, a bond’s strength is directly related to its length: stretching a bond beyond its normal length makes it weaker. https://phys.org/news/2011-09-molecules-extra-long-carbon-carbon-bonds.html Nanophysics Fri, 16 Sep 2011 07:36:17 EDT news235377335 Stanford and Chevron MolecularDiamond Technologies have teamed up to develop a novel class of nanomaterials derived from petroleum. Diamondoids—essentially diamond molecules—may find application in displays, sensors, hydrogen membranes for fuel cells and more. https://phys.org/news/2006-08-chevron-stanford-team-nanoscale-diamondoids.html Nanomaterials Wed, 02 Aug 2006 17:06:55 EDT news73757215