Professor Tsumoru Shintake at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST) yearns for a clean future, one that is affordable and powered by sustainable energy. Originally from the high-energy accelerator field, in 2012 he decided to seek new energy resources — wind and solar were being explored in depth, but he moved…

Originally a mineral, the perovskite used in today’s technology is quite different from the rock found in the Earth mantle. A “perovskite structure” uses a different combination of atoms but keep the general 3-dimensional structure originally observed in the mineral, which possesses superb optoelectronic properties such as strong light absorption and facilitated charge transport. These…

Developing new scientific devices pushing the limits of what we can observe and measure does not occur overnight. There are typically baby steps involved, small and continuous improvements to counter the numerous technical hurdles arising on the way. The new state-of-the-art electron microscope developed by Prof. Tsumoru Shintake at the Okinawa Institute of Science and…

The quantum world is both elegant and mysterious. It is a sphere of existence where the laws of physics experienced in everyday life are broken–particles can exist in two places at once, they can react to each other over vast distances, and they themselves seem confused over whether they are particles or waves. For those…

Traditional chemistry is immensely powerful when it comes to producing very diverse and very complex microscopic chemical molecules. But one thing out of reach is the synthesis of large structures up to the macroscopic scale, which would require tremendous amounts of chemicals as well as an elaborate and complicated technique. For this purpose, scientists rely…