A new technique for growing quantum dots, published this week in Science, has not only found a new, more efficient way to build a useful type of quantum dot, but also opened up a whole group of novel chemical materials for future researchers’ exploration.  

Art and science are sometimes poles apart, but that isn’t the case in a research project described in ACS Omega. For this work, an interdisciplinary team merged scientific research, technological advancements and artistic exploration to experiment with the production, properties and application of a new kind of ceramic.

For the first time, EPFL researchers have exclusively observed molecules participating in hydrogen bonds in liquid water, measuring electronic and nuclear quantum effects that were previously accessible only via theoretical simulations.

Ultrafast optical imaging plays a key role in capturing transient time-evolving phenomena occurring on extremely fast timescales, driving breakthroughs in fields ranging from physics to biology. Conventional ultrafast imaging techniques, such as compressed ultrafast photography (CUP), can record transient events at hundreds of trillions of frames per second using chirped ultrashort pulses. However, these systems are usually large in size, limiting their versatility and practical use. How can ultrafast imaging systems be made more compact, reliable, and versatile without sacrificing performance? To address this issue, this study proposes integrating advanced nanophotonics, compressed sensing, and deep learning to develop single-exposure compressed ultra-compact femtosecond photography (CUF). The simulation shows that by utilizing a super-dispersive metalens, CUF combines focusing and dispersion functions in a compact device to achieve single-exposure ultrafast imaging, providing a transformative solution to overcome the limitations of conventional CUP technology in terms of system size. This work was recently published in Ultrafast Science and featured as the cover story.