UC students explore reactions of crystals that explode in light
Spectrum News highlights UC's groundbreaking research in chemistry
Spectrum News highlighted groundbreaking work by chemistry students at the University of Cincinnati to explore the bizarre properties of crystals that react to light.
UC College of Arts and Sciences Professor Anna Gudmundsdottir and her students are on the frontiers of discovery in the field of photoexplosive crystals. When exposed to light, the lab-grown crystals exhibit strange properties: They bend, twist, bounce and sometimes explode.
“There are only a few labs in the United States that do photodynamic crystals, which is what we’re mostly working with,” UC doctoral student Fiona Wasson told Spectrum News. “We’re the only ones that are studying azide photodynamic explosive crystals.”
The research is funded through the National Science Foundation. Gudmundsdottir said the crystals' properties could be used to improve air safety or create new light-powered sensors.
Gudmundsdottir told Spectrum News the research also gives students valuable scientific experience.
“It makes them a lot more employable because they’ve been at the forefront of discovery,” she said.
Related Stories
UC professor leads film students to the future
April 6, 2026
As a kid, at the age of 10, Marty Schiff’s dad gave him a Kodak Brownie movie camera, and that led to a lifetime of creating stories on film. He spent his summers with that camera, making eight-millimeter movies, with a camera that taught him how to thread a projector, change the film in a closet, and tell stories with the medium he loved. “I always wanted to go to Hollywood,” Schiff says. So later he did, with $200 in his pocket, and began a career that has spanned acting, directing, producing—pretty much everything with the exception of costumes (“I’m not really good with a sewing machine,” he says).
High Court offers protections for therapy speech
April 5, 2026
Jennifer Bard, a professor in the Donald P. Klekamp College of Law and the UC Department of Internal Medicine, spoke with journalists about the US Supreme Court ruling granting first amendment protections for speech offered during therapy sessions.
Scientists discover how snakes stand upright without limbs
April 3, 2026
Smithsonian magazine highlights a study co-authored by UC Professor Bruce Jayne, an expert in snake locomotion, about how snakes stand upright without arms or legs.