Most of the properties of materials, from their strength and hardness to their conductivity and colour, are determined by the behaviour of the electrons they contain. It is the electrons that form the chemical bonds holding molecules and solids together, that carry...
Water – the molecule of life – is an intriguing substance to study. The properties of water, already unique at the macroscale, become even more perplexing when confined to nanoscale regimes. At these reduced length scales, water can exhibit anomalously low dielectric...
A new theoretical framework was developed to investigate the electronic and defect properties of ceria (CeO2) by integrating shell-model interatomic potentials, hybrid quantum mechanics/molecular mechanics (QM/MM) embedded-cluster approach, density functional theory...
Gate dielectrics breakdown (BD) is one of the most challenging areas in the field of semiconductor device reliability. Despite massive research efforts conducted for over 50 years by industry and academia, a consensus has not yet been reached on the microscopic nature...
The global annual production of methanol is ~100 million tonnes, predominately from oil-derived sources using heterogeneous catalysts. Synthesis of methanol from CO2, using sustainable hydrogen, is a promising strategy for clean methanol that has reduced carbon...
