A natural citrus fruit extract has been found to dissolve calcium oxalate crystals, the most common component of human kidney stones, in a finding that could lead to significantly improving kidney stone treatment, according to researchers at the University of Pittsburgh, the University of Houston, and Litholink Corporation, among which is Giannis Mpourmpakis.

In a study published Aug. 8 in the journal Nature, the researchers offer the first evidence that the compound hydroxycitrate (HCA) effectively inhibits calcium oxalate crystal growth and, under certain conditions, is able to dissolve the crystals. HCA shows “promise as a potential therapy to prevent kidney stones,” the researchers wrote. 

When it comes to computers, people never look for “bigger and better,” but rather “smaller and faster.” How do we continue to keep up with that demand, making technology smaller, faster, and more energy-efficient? According to Vincent Sokalski, the answer may be in the fundamental origins of magnets—the spin of electrons.

Sokalski and his group studied the interaction of electron spins in magnetic materials poised for use in next-generation cellphones and computers and discovered how to better measure and predict the changing magnetic state of those materials. This new understanding, recently published in Physical Review B under the title "Energetic Molding of Chiral Magnetic Bubbles", is exciting for the future of computing technology because it will allow scientists to explore and develop materials that are more energy-efficient and faster than traditional semiconductor-based materials.

PQI faculty Karl Johnson and his team recently identified the two main factors for determining the optimal catalyst for turning atmospheric CO2 into liquid fuel. The results of the study, which appeared in the journal ACS Catalysis, will streamline the search for an inexpensive yet highly effective new catalyst.

Imagine a power plant that takes the excess carbon dioxide (CO₂) put in the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels and converts it back into fuel. Now imagine that power plant uses only a little water and the energy in sunlight to operate. The power plant wouldn't burn fossil fuels and would actually reduce the amount of CO₂ in the atmosphere during the manufacturing process. For millions of years, actual plants have been using water, sunlight, and CO₂ to create sugars that allow them to grow. Scientists around the globe are now adopting their energy-producing behavior.

A research team led by PQI faculty Jeremy Levy has discovered electrons that can "swing dance". This unique electronic behavior can potentially lead to new families of quantum devices.

Superconductors, materials that permit electrical current to flow without energy loss, form the basis for magnetic resonance imaging devices as well as emerging technologies such as quantum computers. At the heart of all superconductors is the bunching of electrons into pairs.

The work, done in collaboration with researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, was published May 14 in the journal Nature.

A breakthrough in the control of a type of particle known as the polariton has created a highly specialized form of rotation. 

PQI faculty Andrew Daley and David Snoke and their colleages at Princeton University conducted a test in which they were able to arrange the particles into a 'ring geometry' form in a solid-state environment. The result was a half-vortex in a 'quantized rotation' form.

Remember constructing ball-and-stick models of molecules in your high school or college chemistry classes? Well, that might soon be a thing of the past for Pitt students looking to get a three-dimensional understanding of molecular structures.

PQI faculty Geoffrey Hutchison and Daniel Lambrecht recently received a 2014 Camille and Henry Dreyfus Special Grant Program in the Chemical Sciences award for their project, "Creating an Open Quantum Chemistry Repository." This effort aims to create an open mobile-ready, web-based database of accurate, quantum calculations of molecules. The "Pitt Quantum Repository" will consist at first of 50,000 to 100,000 molecules and quantum chemical data. The database will grow over time to include more molecules and more computed properties.

By fusing together the concepts of active fiber sensors and high-temperature fiber sensors, a team of researchers at the University of Pittsburgh led by PQI faculty Kevin Chen has created an all-optical high-temperature sensor for gas flow measurements that operates at record-setting temperatures above 800 degrees Celsius. This technology is expected to find industrial sensing applications in harsh environments ranging from deep geothermal drill cores to the interiors of nuclear reactors to the cold vacuum of space missions, and it may eventually be extended to many others.

The team describes their all-optical approach in a paper published in Optics Letters.