News: Institute of Physics

It is with deep sadness that we announce that on Saturday, August 23rd, our friend and colleague, physicist Dr. Karel Výborný, suddenly and tragically passed away. Karel died in an accident in the mountains he loved. He was 47 years old and is survived by his wife and two children.

Two Cherenkov telescopes help us understand extreme cosmic phenomena through very high-energy gamma rays; they are currently the most sensitive devices of their kind in the world. The prototypes, which were developed by an international team involving Czech scientists, are now in Ondřejov. This is an exceptional opportunity for Czech astrophysicists, as the telescopes may be moved abroad in the future.   

Thomas Gouder’s life's work at the European Commission's Joint Research Centre in Karlsruhe (JRC) is a state-of-the-art modular system for surface science. The instrument, used for cutting-edge research on nuclear fuel safety, corrosion, catalysis, and actinide chemistry, has served scientists from all over Europe, including teams from Prague. How does it work, why is it being moved to Prague, and what lies ahead for its future?

We invite you to the traditional HR Coffee & Talk meeting at Cukrovarnická.

We invite you to the traditional HR Coffee & Talk meeting at Slovanka.

Will Barker is part of a new generation of theoretical physicists reshaping how we think about gravity, black holes, and the fundamental structure of the universe. His recent research explores the strange frontier where Einstein’s general relativity may no longer hold — a region populated not by traditional black holes, but by their uncanny cousins: black hole mimickers. Since joining the Physics for Future fellowship in Prague, Barker’s work has taken on a broader scope. In this interview, he reflects on the role of uncertainty in physics, how cosmology can test bold new ideas, and why running to work through the hills of Prague has become part of his scientific routine.

A team of physicists from Czech research institutions shows how shaped light fields can steer ultrafast processes inside solids with remarkable precisionResearchers from the Division of Optics  of the Institute of Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences, the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics at Charles University, and the IT4Innovations National Supercomputing Center at VSB – Technical University of Ostrava have succeeded in controlling the motion of electrons in solids with exceptional precision — on the attosecond timescale, i.e., in intervals of a billionth of a billionth of a second (10⁻¹⁸ s). Their findings have been published in the prestigious journal Physical Review Letters as editor’s suggestion.

Over 600 scientists gathered at the Open Symposium in Venice, Italy, to discuss the future direction of European particle physics in a global context. When assessing scientific priorities, the main topic of discussion was the possible successor to the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, which will reach the end of its operational lifetime in 2041. The Open Symposium was part of the process of updating the European Strategy for Particle Physics (ESPP).

The ‘First Light’ from the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, in which FZU scientists have been involved from the very beginning, has attracted a lot of interest in the print and online media and has also been given space in television broadcasts. On this page we present a selection of the most interesting media outputs.

The world's leading mineralogist Jakub Plášil has been unravelling complex crystal structures and discovering new minerals for years. At first glance, it might seem that this is a marginal area of science that is not "in vogue" today. Yet Plášil and his colleagues are making discoveries that have broader implications – for example, in understanding how uranium and other metallic elements are distributed in nature. His research has won him an award by the European Mineralogical Union.

The awardees of this year’s ATLAS Outstanding Achievement Award included also a Czech scientist. Michal Svatoš, a researcher at the Institute of Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences, was honoured for his fundamental contribution to the effective integration of supercomputers into the computing infrastructure of one of the largest physics experiments of our time – the ATLAS detector at the LHC accelerator at CERN.

An international team led by Jakub Vícha from the Institute of Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences has proposed a revolutionary "heavy metal" scenario that may change the view on the composition of the most energetic particles arriving from space. The theory, which the physicist built together with his team based on the analysis of unique data from the Pierre Auger Observatory, will contribute to answering the question of what these particles are made of and where they originate. A crucial role might be played by iron.  Description Illustration of a high-energy cosmic ray shower recorded at the Pierre Auger Observatory (using 22 surface detector stations and four fluorescence detector stations).  | photo: Pierre Auger Observatory

Sakura Pascarelli, scientific director at the European X-ray Free-Electron Laser Facility (EuXFEL), gave in the Dvořák lecture a full and inspiring overview of the facility's cutting-edge science, technological advancements, and its transformative role in global research.

Another session of the popular Radius Centre workshop - Journal Club, where scientists discuss interesting scientific articles.

For the ninth time, we met science enthusiasts from schools and the general public at the Czech Academy of Sciences' Science Fair, the largest popular science event in the Czech Republic. At the FZU exhibition, people could play sunrays in the photovoltaic tent, see the spectrum of visible light with their own eyes, build molecules from Lego, read new physics-themed comics and short stories, and also see a real magnetic sputtering machine, observe the martensitic transformation of alloys under a microscope, and other important physical instruments and phenomena.