Making atoms and electrons behave according to researchers' intentions is no small task, but scientists often get a little help from nature.
Biochemistry
Jan 20, 2023
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Aerosols are tiny particles that can have a significant impact on Earth's climate and human health.
Soft Matter
Jan 19, 2023
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All life is made up of cells several magnitudes smaller than a grain of salt. Their seemingly simple-looking structures mask the intricate and complex molecular activity that enables them to carry out the functions that sustain ...
Cell & Microbiology
Jan 9, 2023
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A research team led by Dr. Yuanliang Zhai from the School of Biological Sciences, The University of Hong Kong (HKU), and his collaborators from The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) and Institut Curie, ...
Biotechnology
Jan 6, 2023
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149
Metal halide perovskites (MHPs) have been emerging as the rising star in the field of optoelectronics during the past decade. The state-of-the-art optoelectronic technologies based on MHPs, such as perovskite solar cells ...
Optics & Photonics
Jan 5, 2023
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38
Around 500 million years ago, early vertebrates in the seas became fish, adopting an inner skeleton and a flexible spine based on a nanocomposite of fibers and mineral, known as bone material. This "invention" of evolution ...
Analytical Chemistry
Dec 21, 2022
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Oxygen is the key substance for life and one of the most abundant elements in the Earth. However, it's still unknown whether oxygen is present (and in which form it may exist) in the inner core, which is composed of almost ...
Earth Sciences
Dec 13, 2022
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Scientists have measured the highest toughness ever recorded, of any material, while investigating a metallic alloy made of chromium, cobalt, and nickel (CrCoNi). Not only is the metal extremely ductile—which, in materials ...
Analytical Chemistry
Dec 8, 2022
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How fast do electrons inside a molecule move? Well, it is so fast that it takes them just a few attoseconds (a billionth of billionth of a second) to jump from one atom to another. Blink and you missed it—millions of billions ...
Optics & Photonics
Dec 5, 2022
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665
Under normal conditions, radioactive materials such as uranium work in a predictable manner.
Analytical Chemistry
Nov 28, 2022
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In atomic physics and quantum chemistry, electron configuration is the arrangement of electrons of an atom, a molecule, or other physical structure. It concerns the way electrons can be distributed in the orbitals of the given system (atomic or molecular for instance).
Like other elementary particles, the electron is subject to the laws of quantum mechanics, and exhibits both particle-like and wave-like nature. Formally, the quantum state of a particular electron is defined by its wave function, a complex-valued function of space and time. According to the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, the position of a particular electron is not well defined until an act of measurement causes it to be detected. The probability that the act of measurement will detect the electron at a particular point in space is proportional to the square of the absolute value of the wavefunction at that point.
An energy is associated to each electron configuration and, upon certain conditions, electrons are able to move from one orbital to another by emission or absorption of a quantum of energy, in the form of a photon.
Knowledge of the electron configuration of different atoms is useful in understanding the structure of the periodic table of elements. The concept is also useful for describing the chemical bonds that hold atoms together. In bulk materials this same idea helps explain the peculiar properties of lasers and semiconductors.
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