The results are “fantastic”, says Yan. They will “really inspire and stimulate the rest of the cold-molecules community”
Exotic phases
Molecular Bose–Einstein condensates could be used in myriad ways. One possibility, says Valtolina, is to create exotic supersolid phases, in which a rigid material flows without resistance. So far this has been achieved only in atomic gases with magnetic interactions — it could now be done in polar molecules, whose interactions are “way stronger”, he says.
In support of the development of large-scale superconducting quantum computers, researchers with the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), one of the largest public research organizations in Japan, in collaboration with Yokohama National University, Tohoku University, and NEC Corporation, proposed and successfully demonstrated a superconducting circuit that can control many qubits at low temperature.
Chemists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory, Stony Brook University (SBU), and their collaborators have uncovered new details of the reversible assembly and disassembly of a platinum catalyst. The new understanding may offer clues to the catalyst’s stability and recyclability.
The work, described in a paper published in the journal Nanoscale (“Unravelling the origin of reaction-driven aggregation and fragmentation of atomically dispersed Pt catalyst on ceria support”), reveals how single platinum atoms on a cerium oxide support aggregate under reaction conditions to form active catalytic nanoparticles — and then, surprisingly, fragment once the reaction is stopped.
Fragmentation may sound shattering, but the scientists say it could be a plus.