chiral

Some molecules exist in two forms such that their structures and their mirror images are not superimposable, like our left and right hands. Called chirality, it is a property these molecules have due to their asymmetry. Chiral molecules…

A team of physicists, including University of Massachusetts assistant professor Tigran Sedrakyan, recently announced in the journal Nature that they have discovered a new phase of matter. Called the "chiral bose-liquid state," the discovery…

Findings published in Nature settle the dispute: phonons can be chiral. This fundamental concept, discovered using circular X-ray light, sees phonons twisting like a corkscrew through quartz. Throughout nature, at all scales, you can find…

Colorado State University chemists have achieved a new feat in the realm of chemical design and synthesis: They've helped create the first example of a synthetic molecule, with an asymmetric oxygen atom as its centerpiece, that remains…

The ability to distinguish two chiral enantiomers is an essential analytical capability for chemical industries including pharmaceutical companies, flavor/odor engineering and forensic science. A new wave of chiral optical methods have…

Truly chiral phonons -- i.e., rotating and propagating atomic motions seen in a crystal lattice -- have never been observed in a bulk 3D material. However, now, Tokyo Tech researchers have identified these in cinnabar. Chirality is the…

Osaka Metropolitan University researchers observed unprecedented collective resonance motion in chiral helimagnets that allow a boost in current frequency bands. When will 6G be a reality? The race to realize sixth generation (6G) wireless…

The left hand looks like the right hand in the mirror but the left-handed glove does not fit on the right hand. Chirality refers to this property where the object cannot be superimposed on to the mirror image. This property in molecules is…

When holding a right hand in front of a mirror, one can see a reflected image of a left hand and vice versa. In 1848, Louis Pasteur discovered that organic molecules are much like our hands: they come in mirror-image pairs of left- and…

It's not easy to be sure that drugs and supplements with twisted -- or chiral -- structures are turning in the correct direction. Now, twirling infrared light can probe both the structures of molecular crystals and their twists, research…