Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain
the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in
Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles
and JavaScript.
The electronic structure of atoms and molecules is the series of energy levels that it are possible for a bound electron to occupy. This electronic structure determines many of the defining characteristics of an atom or molecule, including their chemical, optical, and electrical properties.
Electron capture in 163Ho can be used to determine the electron neutrino mass. The Q value of this process is crucial for the evaluation of the systematic uncertainty in such a measurement, and a 50-fold improvement is now reported.
We demonstrate a photon-counting approach that extends the unique advantages of spectroscopy with interfering frequency combs into regions where nonlinear frequency conversion tends to be very inefficient, providing a step towards precision broadband spectroscopy at short wavelengths and extreme-ultraviolet dual-comb spectroscopy.
Understanding excitonic optical excitations is integral to improving optoelectronic and photovoltaic semiconductor devices. Here, Bennecke et al. use photoemission exciton tomography to unravel the multiorbital electron and hole contributions of entangled excitonic states in the prototypical organic semiconductor C60.
An experiment sensitive to higher-order quantum electrodynamics effects and electron–electron interactions in the high-Z regime was performed using a multi-reference method based on Doppler-tuned X-ray emission from stored relativistic uranium ions with different charge states.
Measurements of the rovibronic structure of radium monofluoride molecules allow the identification of a laser cooling scheme. This will enable precise tests of fundamental physics, such as searches for parity or time-reversal symmetry violation.
Advances in superheavy element studies providing insight into the nuclear and atomic structure and the chemical behaviour of these exotic short-lived systems will help push to the limit of the periodic table of elements and revise the concept of the island of stability.
Typically thought of as inert and non-participating atoms, noble gasses adsorbed onto freshly cleaved single crystal surfaces enhance their electronic band structures, potentially creating more active heterogeneous catalysts.
A promising pathway towards the laser cooling of a molecule containing a radioactive atom has been identified. The unique structure of such a molecule means that it can act as a magnifying lens to probe fundamental physics.
Within the Hartree atomic unit systems, the Schrödinger equation becomes parameter free. But there’s more to it than making a student’s life easier, as Gordon Drake and Eite Tiesinga recount.
Knowing which atomic, molecular and optical physics computer code to use and how is a challenge. Andrew Brown surveys the available software packages and discusses how code development practices in academia could be improved.
Superatoms — particularly paramagnetic ones — can be difficult to isolate and study. Bulky organic ligands have been shown to stabilize a large copper-aluminium superatom with a unique open-shell electronic structure.