Every chemical reaction faces a barrier: For substances to react with one another, it is first necessary to supply energy. In ...

Rydberg atoms are atoms with one or more outer electrons excited to very high energy levels, which interact very strongly with each other. These atoms are widely used to run quantum simulations and ...

Scientists have just created a new, strange type of molecule. It’s made of a bunch of atoms bound together in a ring, like ...

Scientists created half-Möbius molecules, similar to the Möbius strips common in math classes, but half as twisty. It’s a ...

Sheets of metal just two atoms thick can be produced by squashing molten droplets at great pressure between two sapphires. The researchers who developed the process say the unusual materials could ...

For the first time, a team of US researchers has used sensors containing highly excited Rydberg atoms to detect signals from ...

Phonons are the collective vibrations that move through a solid. They can be thought of as waves traveling across the atomic ...

Atomic size measurements like van der Waals and covalent radii are central to chemistry, but are they grounded in reality?

Researchers at Cornell University have developed a powerful imaging technique that reveals atomic scale defects inside computer chips for the first time. Using an advanced electron microscopy method, ...

A couple of weeks back I posted an answer to a question from a Twitter follower’s child, who asked “How Strong Is Space?” That was fun, so here’s another kid-question answered, this one from my own ...

When you eat food, drink liquids, or even breathe in the air, many of those atoms wind up getting incorporated to your body. When you sweat, exhale, and either secrete or excrete matter from your body ...