A breath of information: the volatilome.

Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are small molecular mass substances, which exhibit low boiling points and high-vapour pressures. They are ubiquitous in nature and produced by almost any organism of all kingdoms of life. VOCs are involved in many inter- and intraspecies interactions ranging from antimicrobial or fungal effects to plant growth promotion and human taste perception of fermentation products. VOC profiles further reflect the metabolic or phenotypic state of the living organism that produces them. Hence, they can be exploited for non-invasive medicinal diagnoses or industrial fermentation control. Here, we introduce the reader to these diverse applications associated with the monitoring and analysis of VOC emissions. We also present our vision of real-time VOC analysis enabled by newly developed analytical techniques, which will further broaden the use of VOCs in even wider applications. Hence, we foresee a bright future for VOC research and its associated fields of applications.

Magnetization dynamics in magnonic structures with different geometries: interfaces, notches and waveguides.

The discovery of ultrafast magnetization dynamics 20 years ago has led to a broad variety of experimental techniques to explore phenomena in magnetic materials with high temporal resolution. In the current article we present a study dealing with broadband excitation of spin-wave packets at different magnonic crystal continuous magnetic film interfaces. Similar to protected conducting states on the surfaces of topological band insulators, these interfaces exhibit surface spin-wave modes that propagate out of the crystal into the continuous film. The propagation distance depends on the direction of the applied magnetic field as well as the surface geometry of the crystal.

Coherent ultrafast spin-dynamics probed in three dimensional topological insulators.

Topological insulators are candidates to open up a novel route in spin based electronics. Different to traditional ferromagnetic materials, where the carrier spin-polarization and magnetization are based on the exchange interaction, the spin properties in topological insulators are based on the coupling of spin- and orbit interaction connected to its momentum. Specific ways to control the spin-polarization with light have been demonstrated: the energy momentum landscape of the Dirac cone provides spin-momentum locking of the charge current and its spin. We investigate a spin-related signal present only during the laser excitation studying real and imaginary part of the complex Kerr angle by disentangling spin and lattice contributions. This coherent signal is only present at the time of the pump-pulses' light field and can be described in terms of a Raman coherence time. The Raman transition involves states at the bottom edge of the conduction band. We demonstrate a coherent femtosecond control of spin-polarization for electronic states at around the Dirac cone.