Nanotechnology Now - Press Release: First direct imaging of small noble gas clusters at room temperature: Novel opportunities in quantum technology and condensed matter physics opened by noble gas atoms confined between graphene layers

For the first time, scientists have succeeded in the stabilisation and direct imaging of small clusters of noble gas atoms at room temperature. This achievement opens up exciting possibilities for fundamental research in condensed matter physics and applications in quantum information technology. The key to this breakthrough, achieved by scientists at the University of Vienna in collaboration with colleagues at the University of Helsinki, was the confinement of noble gas atoms between two layers of graphene. This method overcomes the difficulty that noble gases do not form stable structures under experimental conditions at ambient temperatures. Details of the method and the first ever electron microscopy images of noble gas structures (krypton and xenon) have now been published in Nature Materials.