Perovskite solar cells have emerged as a lower-cost, higher-efficiency alternative to traditional silicon solar cells due to their material structure and physical flexibility. Their large power conversion efficiency rate makes them well suited to converting lower light sources into energy. In APL Energy, researchers in Taiwan created perovskite solar cells that effectively convert indoor lighting into electrical power. They tuned the bandgap of the composition of the perovskite and their strategy for passivating the perovskite layer, which makes it less susceptible to corrosion, also improved the overall stability.

Opioids like fentanyl, morphine and oxycodone are the drugs most linked to overdoses in the U.S. Typical screening methods for drug usage involve collection of blood, saliva or urine samples. Now, in ACS’ Analytical Chemistry, researchers demonstrate a pen-like tool that can quickly and non-invasively collect molecules from the skin’s surface to be screened for opioids with mass spectrometry.

SAN ANTONIO — June 24, 2025— Southwest Research Institute has delivered the novel Compact Dual Ion Composition Experiment (CoDICE) instrument for final integration into NASA’s Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) spacecraft. Scheduled to launch in late 2025, IMAP will help researchers better understand the boundary of the heliosphere, the magnetic bubble that surrounds and protects our solar system.

A Japanese research team has successfully achieved direct observation of the charge distribution at the interface of ferroelectric domains. This nanometer-scale distribution was measured using a combination of advanced local charge imaging with a state-of-the-art electron microscope and atomic displacement analysis at the picometer (one trillionth of a meter) scale.

These findings represent a significant breakthrough in understanding the behavior of ferroelectric devices—such as multilayer ceramic capacitors (MLCCs)—which are increasingly in demand for miniaturization and enhanced performance.

A pioneering research lab at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign has achieved another milestone using light-driven enzymatic reactions to convert simple biological building blocks into valuable chemicals. The team, part of the Center for Advanced Bioenergy and Bioproducts Innovation (CABBI), developed a clean, efficient way to make complex chemicals called chiral ketones through photocatalysis. Chiral molecules — commonly used in agrochemicals and medicines — exist in two mirror-image forms, like left and right hands, and often only one “hand” is effective or safe. This study offers a precise and eco-friendly way to make specific chiral molecules with complicated structures, supporting new opportunities to transform renewable carbon sources like bioenergy crops into high-value molecules.

Researchers at Tampere University and their collaborators from Germany and India have experimentally confirmed that angular momentum is conserved when a single photon is converted into a pair – validating a key principle of physics at the quantum level for the first time. This breakthrough opens new possibilities for creating complex quantum states useful in computing, communication, and sensing.