Diazoacetic acid esters are important intermediates in drug and agrochemical synthesis, but their preparation typically requires hazardous diazomethane. Researchers from the Tokyo University of Science developed a safer method using a Michael addition-mediated azide-to-diazo conversion. By pretreating 2-azidoacrylic acid esters with a bulky phosphine followed by nucleophile addition, they produced β-heteroatom-substituted diazo esters without toxic precursors. This simpler approach offers a practical and flexible route to access diverse organonitrogen compounds.

Researchers at the University of Oxford have demonstrated a new type of quantum interaction using a single trapped ion. By creating and controlling increasingly complex forms of “squeezing” – including a fourth-order effect known as quadsqueezing – the team has, for the first time, made previously unreachable quantum effects experimentally accessible. The approach also provides a new way to engineer these interactions, with potential applications in quantum simulation, sensing, and computing. Their results have been published today (1 May) in Nature Physics.

Lensless multi-core fiber endoscopes suffer from honeycomb-like artifacts that obscure fine structures. To overcome this, researchers from Tsinghua University and Technische Universität Dresden developed SGARNet, which allows us to cleanly erase long-standing honeycomb artifacts via the frequency domain, bypass the need for massive paired data, and seamlessly recover high-fidelity images. The technique will open new avenues for future minimally invasive diagnostics and advanced endoscopic technologies.

Mechanochemistry is a growing field for chemical reactions that proceed in the solid state in the absence, or with miniscule amounts, of solvent added. For decades, solvents have been considered conventional for the progression of modern chemistry, nonetheless, researchers are increasingly demonstrating that mechanochemistry can synthesize complex molecules more effectively. With more progress, mechanochemistry could alleviate solvent-related environmental and financial burdens in chemical industries. New research from WPI-ITbM at Nagoya University demonstrates a simple mechanochemical method for synthesizing a series of synthetically challenging conductive organic molecules.