News from FZU

Are you curious about how to engage the public, companies, or the media with your scientific work? Join us for an interactive introductory seminar on science communication.

Dear colleagues,Let us invite you and your children to an afternoon of games and fun, this time with the theme of (super)heroes. The event takes place on the premises of the FZU at Slovanka in all weather conditions. You can look forward to activities for all ages, barbecue, other refreshments, and small gifts.You can book your place here. When booking, please specify the number of people attending the event (adults+children). We are looking forward to everyone!

The poster titled "Anonymization: The Future is Unbiased", presented by the FZU team (led by Markéta Iffland and Lucie Speváková) at the EARMA–INORMS Congress 2025, has been selected by expert committee as the best poster. The event, held from 6 to 8 May 2025 in Madrid, Spain, brought together over 2,000 research management professionals from 67 countries, offering a unique platform for in-person networking and exchange of best practices.

How can the preparation of polymer brushes, the basis of modern biosensors, be made faster and simpler? A team led by Hana Lísalová from the Division of Optics of the Institute of Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences has found a solution: it designed and, using 3D printing, manufactured a microfluidic reactor. The new method of preparing thin polymer films allows for better control of their properties while saving time and chemicals. The research results were published in the prestigious Chemical Engineering Journal.

Dear colleagues,we would like to invite you to the seminar of Division of Elementary Particle Physics of Institute of Physics, presented by Volker Springel.For more info, please see invitation.

Starting Monday, May 5, for four days we could meet almost a hundred international participants of the final meeting of the Advancement and Innovation for Detectors at Accelerators (AIDAinnova) project in the corridors of the Solid 21 building and the old building of the Institute of Physics.

On Friday 16 May, six agreements on scientific cooperation were formally signed at the Prague representation of the Free State of Saxony, between the German Center for Astrophysics and leading Czech scientific institutions. Michael Prouza, the Director of FZU - Institute of Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences, signed the agreement alongside Professor Günther Hasinger, the designated founding director of the German Center. 

Altermagnets and magnonics have both made the headlines repeatedly last year. Miina Leiviskä, a MSCA COFUND Physics for Future fellowship postdoc at the Institute of Physics of the CAS, blends these topics that have so recently upturned the world of physics. Are they at the core of future computing, or is it not so simple?

Scientists from the Institute of Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences, led by Zdeněk Hubička and Jiří Olejníček, have succeeded in developing an improved method for preparing thin films of zinc oxide (ZnO) that respond to vacuum ultraviolet radiation much faster than previously known films produced by other methods. We have previously written about the early benefits of this technology here. The key to the current shift has been the use of a new plasma deposition method based on electron cyclotron wave resonance, which has made it possible to significantly reduce the appearance of specific defects in the material. This led to the detection rate of the optical signal and the photosensitivity itself being increased several times. The results, which were published in the prestigious  Scientific Reportsjournal, were contributed to also by colleagues from Japan, Kuwait and New Zealand.

Dear colleagues,we would like to invite you to the seminar of Division of Elementary Particle Physics of Institute of Physics, presented by Bharat Ratra.For more info, please see invitation.

A team of physicists of the Czech Academy of Scienceshas unveiled a novel battery electrolyte that could to reshape the future of energy storage—enhancing stability, simplifying production, and extending battery lifespan.

How many nanometres does your hand measure? Why does nothing stand still in the nano- world? And what does atomic force microscopy allow us to do? This and more is revealed in the new comic book Secrets of the Nano- World, published by the Institute of Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences. The comic book introduces the frequently mentioned, but rarely taught topic of nanotechnology to (not only) students and teachers.

Open Access means permanent, free and immediate online access to documents for all users. It brings faster sharing of knowledge and the latest findings to the general public, as well as streamlining scholarly communication. For scientists, Open Access can mean higher citation rates for scientific publications and, in turn, increased visibility of 

The program is composed of four sessions. Each session starts with a lecture and continues with practical exercises. For practical exercises, the users will be provided with a cookbook, installation files and necessary data. Installation of all necessary software will be done at the beginning of the workshop. Please let us know in advance if you cannot come with a notebook.For this workshop, a preliminary experience with Jana2006/Jana2020 is required. The workshop is OFF LINE.

Everyday things have interesting aspects if we choose to explore them a little. Crystallography studies substances in the solid state. When a chicken egg is considered, only the shell is solid. That's what we decided to analyse using X-ray diffraction.

Without adequate methods, science is essentially blind. Why, then, is it so hard to secure funding for pure method development? Daniel Tchoń from the Institute of Physics of the CAS shares his journey towards scientific software development and why he views science as a form of art.

Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics was awarded to CERN collaborations during a ceremony on 5 April in Los Angeles.  The prize goes to the ALICE, ATLAS, CMS and LHCb collaborations, which bring together scientists from more than 70 countries.