News from FZU

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

There are pieces of news that are hard to believe. This applies also to the one about the decease of Vláďa Cháb, who was known for his immeasurable vitality and sporting spirit. Unfortunately, his great scientific and sporting heart stopped on the night of March 5, 2023, at the age of 76. When I heard about a month ago that he was not in good health, I did not pay much attention to the news. I believed that there was no illness or obstacle that Vláďa’s spirit could not handle. Unfortunately, I was wrong.

At the HiLASE Centre, we offer our superb research infrastructure to other users, completely free of charge. In order to apply for the beamtime in our facility, you only need to send us your proposal via the electronic HiLASE Open Access Proposal Management System. The right time to apply is just now: the call for proposals is open from 1st March to 15th May 2023.

The HiLASE Centre would like to invite you to participate in the annual LIDT Challenge. In this competition, we are going to test the samples of your anti-reflective coated windows. As a reward, you will gain qualified knowledge of the respective damage thresholds of your components.

In HiLASE Centre, a new generation of diode-pumped lasers with high average power and high repetition frequency has been developed for a long time. We talked to Jan Brajer, a leading expert from the HiLASE Centre, about colours of the laser as well as success in laser shock peening.

New method to obtain different martensitic phases in Ni-Mn-Ga-Fe alloy with simplified variant microstructures allows us to analyze the crystal structure of NM, 14M, and 10M martensites in greater detail. We found that the short crystallographic axes of different martensites at the same temperature have different lengths which suggests that the equilibrium NM structure building blocks cannot be used to build the crystal structures of 14M and 10M martensites. As a replacement for the NM building block model we introduce a constant plane shift model with identical shifting values of the nearest planes (110) along [ ] or [ ]. The work demonstrates that the value of plane shifting differs dramatically between martensites in agreement with ab initio calculations. The application of the constant plane shift and hard sphere models in modulated lattices for atomic-level twinning considerations will be discussed.  

On February 11, the International Day of Women and Girls in Science is celebrated. On this occasion, we decided to find out what status women in research have. Facts will be revealed, but in addition to graphs, we also offer interviews with female scientists working at the Institute of Physics. We wanted to find out why they chose physics and whether there are equal opportunities in physics.

Basic research in physics often consumes a great deal of energy, but there are visionaries who have been pushing through plans for how to save energy in the largest experiments for years. The chairman of the FZU's International Advisory Board, particle physicist Eckhard Elsen, is one of them. The former research director at CERN is also behind the upgrade plans for the particle accelerator - the High Luminosity Large Hadron Collider.

We are delighted to announce a significant achievement of the joint strategic partnership between the HiLASE Centre (FZU CAS) and the ELI Beamlines Facility.  A team of researchers from both laser centres has recently published an article in the prestigious journal Communications Physics (Nature publishing). The topic of the article was A multi-MeV alpha particle source via protonboron fusion driven by a 10-GW tabletop laser.

Karel Závěta was an important figure in condensed matter physics. 67 years ago, on the first of February 1956, he joined the then Institute of Technical Physics of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, today called the Physical Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences. He began his scientific career in the Department of Magnetism led by J.Brož. He became involved in the study of ferrites and continued in this area in cooperation with S.Krupička. The topic of his doctoral thesis was the use of electric conductivity to measure the magnetocaloric effect. For several years he held the post of the Science Secretary of the institute.

Single molecule circuits, where individual molecules are placed between two nano-electrodes, are ideal systems to create molecular-scale functional materials with the desired electronic properties. The potential implications are significant for nanoelectronics and could also help with climate change through more efficient nanoscale devices.

Luca Volpe - Nuclear fusion with lasers and related science “From the recent breakthrough at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) to a new European Pathway for Laser-Fusion in EU”

The winners of the first installment of Science Challenge returned to HiLASE Centre and the neighbouring ELI Beamlines on Thursday the 26th of January 2023. During the day-long programme, which was one of the prizes for winning the competition, they visited the centres’ laboratories and experienced the work of a scientist for the day.

Will we be left with high electricity bills and is the transmission network in the Czech Republic sufficiently dimensioned? Current topics of the last months became the subject of the Current and Future Energy workshop, which was organized in the Solid21 lecture hall on January 17 by the Institute of Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences, where research into renewable sources is running e.g. within the Pilatus project. The invitation to take part in the discussion was accepted by Jan Bartoš from the Czech Transmission System Operator (ČEPS) and Pavel Řežábek, the Chief Economist of ČEZ.

Description Eli Beamlines The ELI Beamlines Research Facility, which houses some of the world's most intense laser systems, was transferred from the Institute of Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences (FZU) to the ELI ERIC (Extreme Light Infrastructure ERIC) international research consortium at the beginning of this year. The centre in Dolní Břežany has thus joined the ranks of scientific centres such as CERN or the European Southern Observatory in Chile.