news 2020

A publication by researchers led by physicist Prof. Cornelia Denz is among the world's 30 most groundbreaking papers of 2020, according to the journal Optics & Photonics News. In its special annual end-of-year issue, the journal selects the research highlights of the past year in the fields of optics and photonics.

Scientific articles in the field of physics are mostly very short and deal with a very restricted topic. A remarkable exception to this is an article published recently by physicists from the Universities of Münster and Düsseldorf. The article is 127 pages long, cites a total of 1075 sources and deals with a wide range of branches of physics - from biophysics to quantum mechanics.

How can cells adhere to surfaces and move on them? This is a question which was investigated by an international team of researchers headed by Prof. Michael Hippler from the University of Münster and Prof. Kaiyao Huang from the Institute of Hydrobiology (Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, China).

Scientists at Freie Universität Berlin develop a deep learning method to solve a fundamental problem in quantum chemistry No 255/2020 from Dec 18, 2020 A team of scientists at Freie Universität Berlin has developed an artificial intelligence (AI) method for calculating the ground state of the Schrödinger equation in quantum chemistry.

International Team is awarded the Breakthrough of the Year 2020 prize by Physics World magazine Light For the development of a light-emitting silicon alloy, researchers from TU Eindhoven, Netherlands and the University of Jena, Germany together with partners from the University of Linz and TU Munich, are today (17 December) being awarded the " Breakthrough of the Year " prize by Physics World magazine.

Pseudospin in antiferromagnets: new perspectives for information technologies Elementary particles carry an intrinsic angular momentum known as their spin. For an electron, the spin can take only two particular values relative to a quantization axis, letting us denote them as spin-up and spin-down electrons.

An international team of researcher developed a traction force microscopy platform which allows for quantifying the pulls and pushes exerted via T-cell microvilli, in both tangential and normal directions, during T-cell activation Mechanical forces play a vital role for many biological mechanisms, such as the sensation of infected cells by T-cells.

High-precision measurements of the strong interaction between stable and unstable particles The positively charged protons in atomic nuclei should actually repel each other, and yet even heavy nuclei with many protons and neutrons stick together. The so-called strong interaction is responsible for this.

In a recent nature perspective, international experts in the field of optical neural networks, optical deep learning and photonic computing have put their expertise together to review the path from pathbreaking optical neural networks and optical computing realizations in the past fifty years and how they advanced to photonic artificial intelligence applications.

X-ray experiments carried out at BESSY prove that photosystems from spinach can form manganese oxide nanoparticles - a product of oxygenic photosynthesis No 238/2020 from Dec 04, 2020 An interdisciplinary research team at Freie Universität led by Professor Holger Dau and Professor Robert Burnap from Oklahoma State University have proved that protein complexes in modern photosynthesis can form manganese oxide when exposed to light.

A great success for the University of Münster: the German Research Foundation (DFG) is funding two new Collaborative Research Centres (CRC). The two research alliances - entitled "inSight - Multiscale imaging of organ-specific inflammation? and "Intelligent matter: From responsive to adaptive nanosystems? - will together be receiving funding of more than 20 million euros.

Near the centre of the Milky Way there exists a heretofore unknown population of stars that exhibits characteristic properties. It was discovered by an international research team under the direction of Dr Manuel Arca Sedda of Collaborative Research Centre "The Milky Way System" (CRC 881) of Heidelberg University.

Borexino detector succeeds in measuring the sun's CNO fusion cycle The Borexino Experiment research team has succeeded in detecting neutrinos from the sun's second fusion process, the Carbon Nitrogen Oxygen cycle (CNO cycle) for the first time. This means that all of the theoretical predictions on how energy is generated within the sun have now also been experimentally verified.

Luminous carbon nanotubes detect pathogens - and are quick and easy to use. Researchers from Bochum, Göttingen, Duisburg and Cologne have developed a new method for detecting bacteria and infections. They use fluorescent nanosensors to track down pathogens faster and more easily than with established methods.

Catalysts with a metal-nitrogen bond can transfer nitrogen to organic molecules. In this process short-lived molecular species are formed, whose properties critically determine the course of the reaction and product formation. The key compound in a catalytic nitrogen-atom transfer reaction has now been analysed in detail by chemists at the Universitis of Göttingen Frankfurt and Stuttgart.

Using modern nanotechnology, it is possible nowadays to produce structures which have a feature sizes of just a few nanometres. This world of the most minute particles - also known as quantum systems - makes possible a wide range of technological applications, in fields which include magnetic field sensing, information processing, secure communication or ultra-precise time keeping.

World's first fingertip-mounted sensor that maintains user's sensitivity Scientists from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and the University of Tokyo have developed an ultrathin pressure sensor that can be attached directly to the skin. It can measure how fingers interact with objects to produce valuable data for technological or medical applications.

Researchers have succeeded in directly observing the formation and interaction of highly ionized krypton plasma Light The last decade has been marked by a series of remarkable discoveries identifying how the universe is composed. It is understood that the mysterious substance dark matter makes up 85 % of the matter in the universe.

Physicists from the University of Göttingen use computer simulation to investigate aging in living glassy systems Aging is a process that affects not only living beings. Many materials, like plastics and glasses, also age - ie they change slowly over time as their particles try to pack better - and there are already computer models to describe this.

Combined efforts of experiment and simulation pave the way to new applications Materials consisting of inorganic and organic components can combine the best of two worlds: under certain circumstances, the so-called MOFs - short for metal-organic frameworks - are structured in the same order as crystals and are at the same time porous and deformable.