Graphene offers X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy a window of opportunity

X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) is one of the most sensitive and informative surface analysis techniques available. However, XPS requires a high vacuum to operate, which makes analyzing materials in liquid and gaseous environments difficult. Now, researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), ELETTRA (Italy) and...

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Crafting ultrathin color coatings

In a sub-basement deep below the Laboratory for Integrated Science and Engineering at Harvard University, Mikhail Kats gets dressed. Mesh shoe covers, a face mask, a hair net, a pale gray jumpsuit, knee-high fabric boots, vinyl gloves, safety goggles, and a hood with clasps at the collar—these are not to protect him, Kats explains, but to protect the...

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Trapping light with a twister

Researchers at MIT who succeeded last year in creating a material that could trap light and stop it in its tracks have now developed a more fundamental understanding of the process. The new work — which could help explain some basic physical mechanisms — reveals that this behavior is connected to a wide range of other seemingly unrelated phenomena....

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