News from FZU

Solid state physicist Helena Reichlová will establish the Dioscuri Centre for Spin Caloritronics and Magnonics at the Institute of Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences from 1 October 2023. She will look for ways to reduce the exponentially increasing energy consumption in the information technology sector of the future.

Abstract: The Lambda Cold Dark Matter (LCDM) paradigm has been spectacularly successful at reproducing observations of the cosmic microwave background and of the large-scale structure of the Universe. On these scales, the structures contrasted with the theory are in the linear or mildly non-linear regime, where observations are well established and theoretical predictions are robust. LCDM also makes specific predictions in the non-linear regime; in particular, for the evolution, abundance, structure, and substructure of dark matter halos, the sites of galaxy formation. On these non-linear scales a number of potential challenges to LCDM have been identified when confronting the observed internal structure of galaxies with LCDM expectations. I plan to review briefly the status of these challenges and to discuss whether they signal a potential breakdown of the LCDM paradigm or just reflect our incomplete understanding of the complex process of galaxy formation.    The seminar will be held in the SOLID21 lecture hall in the SOLID21 building of the Institute of Physics, Na Slovance 2, Prague 8 on the ground floor. Location: https://goo.gl/maps/wEf7PsiLimSXMZhE9 The seminar will be also available via ZOOM video conference system: Meeting ID: 674 9629 6646 Passcode: 575511  

This year’s photography competition named The Charm of Physics is now open – apart from the current and former FZU employees – to high school students. Each contestant can submit up to 5 photos. The submission deadline is 31 October 2022.

We’re building “Superlasers for the real world”. We offer innovative laser technologies and solutions, and effective applications in industry, while constantly pushing the boundaries of laser technology to benefit the Czech and European economy, as well as advancing laser use on Earth and beyond.

Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) remain one of the leading causes of death worldwide. To improve therapeutic outcomes and reduce health care costs, a better understanding of disease-specific variation across cardiac patients is needed with emerging technologies providing innovative opportunities in the form of home diagnosis. Electrical biosensors are especially promising when interconnected with 2D materials such as graphene. Despite impressive achievements in the electrical performance of graphene-based field effect transistors (gFET), some key bottlenecks need to be tackled: reproducibility of gFET preparation, maintaining high mobility after surface modification and sensing in high ionic strength medium.

Scientists from the Institute of Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences have published the results of extensive research in the field of public health. Their aim was to map the occurrence of SARS-CoV-2 virus in Prague public transport during the COVID-19 pandemic. The team from the Laboratory of Functional Biointerfaces, led by Hana Lísalová, developed special biosensors for testing. Their use has provided new insights into the fight against infectious diseases.  The research, which has recently been published in Journal of Travel Medicine, was implemented in collaboration with the Biology Centre of the Czech Academy of Sciences, University of South Bohemia in České Budějovice, Taiwanese Academia Sinica, ELI ERIC and Prague Public Transit Company.

Networking experts from around the world discussed the current status and development of data transfers from the LHC accelerator at CERN and other scientific experiments requiring large data transfers. During the LHCOPN-LHCONE meeting at the Institute of Physics on 18-19 April, more than 70 experts met physically and virtually and agreed on the need to expand the use of IPv6 and strengthen network connections to meet the needs of large projects. Description The LHCOPN-LHCONE meeting at the Institute of Physics

Swapping your left shoe for the right one while putting them on is unpleasant, but swapping molecules in the same way when making medicines can be fatal - instead of a drug poison is produced. A new method invented by a team of international scientists led by Lukas Palatinus from the Institute of Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences will help prevent this. The unique procedure for determining the position of atoms in crystals was published last week in the Nature Chemistry.

Description Dr. Timotheus Verhagen ve své budoucí laboratoři In an ambitious project, Tim Verhagen, a dutch scientist at the Institute of Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences, aims to create a new type of material that will have simultaneously ferromagnetic and ferroelectric properties at room temperature. The project, which is funded by the European Research Council (ERC), involves the deposition of very thin, single-atomic layers of different materials on top of each other to create so called “2D sandwich".

Water pollution is endangering more lives annually than all forms of violence and war. Accessible sources of clean water are limited. Less than 1 percent of the planet's freshwater is available to us. The international Aqua3S project proposes innovative solutions to water facilities, as well as the standardization of current existing sensor technologie.

The rare earth tetraboride HoB4 was studied in detail by using X-ray powder diffraction in the temperature range of 3.5 − 8 K to investigate the crystal structure of this compound below its Neel temperature TN1 = 7.1 K. The system undergoes a first order transition of magnetic nature at TN2 = 5.7 K, yet the crystal structure is already distorted in between these two magnetic transitions. In fact, crystalline unit cell changes from the tetragonal symmetry with P4/mbm space group to a monoclinic symmetry. The ground state of this tetraboride compound at 3 K found to be best described by the space group P21/b. Furthermore, large bifurcation in unit cell volume between the warming and cooling cycle was observed, if the data are treated with tetragonal crystal symmetry - providing an additional support that the crystal structure is distorted indeed.

Description Tomas Jungwirth, Head of the Department of Spintronics and Nanoelectronics Approximately only one percent of scientists in Europe succeed in obtaining a grant from the European Research Council, but Professor Tomáš Jungwirth from the Institute of Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences has succeeded in a large competition for the second time. With his project Altermagnetism and spintronics without magnetization and relativity he has succeeded once again in the ERC Advanced grant category after twelve years and received the highest possible support of €2.5 million. The success rate for this type of grants was only 13.2% in 2022.

Renowned physicist Luca Volpe recently gave a lecture at FZU, discussing the latest breakthroughs in nuclear fusion with lasers and related science. The lecture, entitled “From the recent breakthrough at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) to a new European Pathway for Laser-Fusion in EU,” covered two main topics.

Dear colleagues, we would like to invite you to the seminar of Division of Elementary Particle Physics of Institute of Physics. More information can be found in the attachment.