College of Chemistry

UC Berkeley scientists develop new spectroscopic probe for the secrets of complex interfaces

February 4, 2019
Press Release | US Department of Energy
The DOE has announced in a news release that Professor of Chemistry Richard Saykally and colleagues have devised a spectroscopy method that probes buried graphene layers inside graphite.

Big data at the atomic scale: new detector reaches new frontier in speed

February 21, 2019
Berkeley Lab News Center | by Glenn Roberts Jr.
Advances in electron microscopy have opened up a new window into the nanoscale world and brought a wide range of samples into focus as never before.

New microscope technology energizes undergraduate research

March 14, 2022
UC Berkeley, College of Chemistry Press Release

Zeiss microscope

Chemistry senior Nadia Berndt prepares scans for her investigation of charge dynamics in clay encapsulated 2D materials. Photo: Michael Barnes

The College of Chemistry has received a new state-of-the-art EVO LS 15 scanning electron microscope (SEM) provided by ZEISS in support of the instructional physical chemistry labs. The new SEM will allow our students to take images of...

Birgitta Whaley: Finding the quantum in biology

October 28, 2020
UC Berkeley, College of Chemistry Press Release

Birgitta Whaley, Professor of Chemistry and co-director of the Berkeley Quantum Information and Computation Center, presented this year's endowed G.N. Lewis Lecture at the College of Chemistry. Professor Whaley currently serves on the U.S. President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. She is a foremost expert in the fields of quantum information, quantum physics, molecular quantum mechanics, and quantum biology.

This lecture is given annually in honor of Gilbert Newton Lewis who was the...

Print, recycle, repeat: Scientists demonstrate a biodegradable printed circuit

September 1, 2022
Theresa Duque | Berkeley Lab

A Berkeley Lab-led research team has developed a fully recyclable and biodegradable printed circuit. The research could divert wearable devices and other flexible electronics from landfill, and mitigate the health and environmental hazards posed by heavy metal waste. (Credit: Marilyn Sargent/Berkeley Lab)

According to the United Nations, less than a quarter of all U.S. electronic waste gets recycled. In 2021 alone, global e-waste surged at 57.4 million tons, and only 17.4% of that was...

In Memoriam: Richard Andersen

September 10, 2019
UC Berkeley, College of Chemistry Press Release
The field of inorganic chemistry has lost one of its most passionate practitioners; Professor Richard Andersen passed away in Oakland, California, on June 16, 2019, at the age of 76.

Scientists grow lead-free solar material with a built-in switch

September 1, 2022
Theresa Duque | Berkeley Lab

Light microscopy illustration shows nanowires, 100 to 1,000 nanometers in diameter

Light microscopy image of nanowires, 100 to 1,000 nanometers in diameter, grown from cesium germanium tribromide (CGB) on a mica substrate. The CGB nanowires are samples of a new lead-free halide perovskite solar material that is also ferroelectric. (Credit: Peidong Yang and Ye Zhang/Berkeley Lab)

Solar panels, also...

What happens when you explode a chemical bond?

July 11, 2019
By Robert Sanders | UC Berkeley media relations
UCB Chemists using some of the shortest laser pulses available have now been able to resolve the step-by-step process leading to the exploding of a chemical bond, essentially making a movie of the event.

New ‘chain mail’ material of interlocking molecules is tough, flexible and easy to make

January 23, 2023
By Robert Sanders | UC Berkeley media relations

The individual building blocks of a catenane are polyhedral molecules — a type of adamantane — that link arms to form a 2D mesh or 3D network that is sturdy but flexible.

The individual building blocks of a catenane are polyhedral molecules — a type of adamantane — that link arms to form a 2D mesh or 3D network that is sturdy but flexible. (Image credit: Tianqiong Ma, UC Berkeley)

University of...

John Hartwig receives the Arthur C. Cope Award

January 13, 2021
UC Berkeley, College of Chemistry Press Release

Professor John Hartwig

John Hartwig, Henry Rapoport Professor of Chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley, has been awarded the 2021 ACS Arthur C. Cope Award for the discovery, development, and mechanistic elucidation of practical reactions...