“However, being an indirect semiconductor, its utilization in optoelectronics has been hindered by poor optical properties.”
“While silicon does not naturally emit light in its bulk form, porous and nanostructured silicon can produce detectable light after being exposed to visible radiation.”
Scientists have been aware of this phenomenon for decades, but the precise origins of the illumination have been the subject of debate.
Posted in biotech/medical, quantum physics
Since the discovery of quantum mechanics more than a hundred years ago, it has been known that electrons in molecules can be coupled to the motion of the atoms that make up the molecules. Often referred to as molecular vibrations, the motion of atoms act like tiny springs, undergoing periodic motion. For electrons in these systems, being joined to the hip with these vibrations means they are constantly in motion too, dancing to the tune of the atoms, on timescales of a millionth of a billionth of a second.
But all this dancing around leads to a loss of energy and limits the performance of organic molecules in applications like organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs), infrared sensors and fluorescent biomarkers used in the study of cells and for tagging diseases such as cancer cells.
Now, researchers using laser-based spectroscopic techniques have discovered ‘new molecular design rules’ capable of halting this molecular dance. Their results, reported in Nature (“Decoupling excitons from high-frequency vibrations in organic molecules”), revealed crucial design principles that can stop the coupling of electrons to atomic vibrations, in effect shutting down their hectic dancing and propelling the molecules to achieve unparalleled performance.
Inside every plant, animal and human cell are billions of molecular machines. They’re made up of proteins, DNA and other molecules, but no single piece works on its own. Only by seeing how they interact together, across millions of types of combinations, can we start to truly understand life’s processes.
In a paper published in Nature, we introduce AlphaFold 3, a revolutionary model that can predict the structure and interactions of all life’s molecules with unprecedented accuracy. For the interactions of proteins with other molecule types we see at least a 50% improvement compared with existing prediction methods, and for some important categories of interaction we have doubled prediction accuracy.
We hope AlphaFold 3 will help transform our understanding of the biological world and drug discovery. Scientists can access the majority of its capabilities, for free, through our newly launched AlphaFold Server, an easy-to-use research tool. To build on AlphaFold 3’s potential for drug design, Isomorphic Labs is already collaborating with pharmaceutical companies to apply it to real-world drug design challenges and, ultimately, develop new life-changing treatments for patients.
Astronomy Magazine — Project Lyra is the cover feature!
A big thank you to Maciej Rebisz for the images and the entire Project Lyra team for the research work!
Project Lyra develops concepts for reaching interstellar objects such as 1I / ‘Oumuamua and 2I / Borisov with a spacecraft, based on near-term technologies. But what is an interstellar object?
Researchers are using generative AI and other techniques to teach robots new skills—including tasks they could perform in homes.
Shopify’s head count has remained flat since last year, and executives say they have AI to thank.
Elon Musk’s unique management style at Tesla, which involves small, highly technical teams, removing underperforming employees, and creating challenging deadlines, has been crucial to the company’s success Questions to inspire discussion Who is Andrej Karpathy? —Andrej Karpathy is a highly respected computer scientist who served as the Director of AI and Autopilot at Tesla and co-founded OpenAI.
