Simplicity Itself!

We present another in our occasional series of science-related headlines that just beg for attention, even if it's almost impossible to know what they mean:

"All-inorganic perovskite nanocrystals illuminate the future of scintillators"

In as close to a nutshell as I can find, what this means is that a particular kind of nanocrystal known as perovskite will assist physicists when they use the process of scintillation in experiments. "Scintillation" is the conversion of photons to visible fluorescence so they can be seen. This conversion is important to several medical and astronomical procedures.

Ordinary scintillation has just about reached its useful limits with equipment currently available, though, meaning that scientists will not be able to perform more precise and more involved experiments using the process. Previous experiments have extended scintillation's reach by using perovskite nanocrystals, a particular setup of molecules that responds to different energy levels. But until recently, those nanocrystals have been made up of a hybrid of organic and inorganic material -- only now Dr. Xiaogang Liu at the University of Singapore has used an all-inorganic form of the perovskite nanocrystal to produce even more detailed images.

But of course I don't have to tell you that, O Tolerant Reader...