Innovative methods of material surface treatment and a completely new and unique solution in the field of industrial tool preparation, using laser technologies, are available thanks to Hi-Beams, s.r.o., a newly established spin-off of HiLASE Centre and SHM company, an expert on industrial PVD coatings.
Libor Šmejkal from the Institute of Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences has won the second place in the “Best Dissertation Thesis” category in this year’s Werner von Siemens Award. Libor won the award for the thesis entitled “Topology band theory of relativistic spintronics in antiferromagnets” supervised by professor Tomáš Jungwirth.
The Joint Institute for Nuclear Research awarded the JINR Prize for 2020 to the team whose member is Dr. Nikita Medvedev, deputy head of the theory group in the Department of Radiation and Chemical Physics (Institute of Physics) and head of the theory group in the Laser Plasma Department (Institute of Plasma Physics).
A patented method of protecting the surface of fuel cells from corrosion, which will extend the life of fuel cells under both emergency and standard conditions, could be used in all 94 nuclear reactors in the United States. Innovative solutions were patented in the Czech Republic by Irena Kratochvílová, František Fendrych, Andrew Taylor (for the Institute of Physics) and Radek Škoda, Jan Škarohlíd (then for the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering of the Czech Technical University) already in 2015.
The Pierre Auger Collaboration is releasing 10% of the data recorded using the world’s largest cosmic ray detector. These data are being made available publicly with the expectation that they will be used by a wide and diverse community including professional and citizen-scientists and for educational and outreach initiatives.
Operation of the L3-HAPLS laser system (ELI Beamlines Research Centre) at 0.5 PW level was demonstrated through compression of the full energy output pulses currently generated by the laser chain, in the Petawatt vacuum compressor. The L3-HAPLS is a system designed for sustained operation with repetition rate 10 Hz.
The amended Framework Education Programmes published on 1 February 2021 by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports introduced significant curriculum reduction for physics education in elementary schools. The Education Programme disregards, for example, Newton’s laws or the explanation of the transformations of different forms of energy.
The physicist, poet and translator Elena Buixaderas made it with her article to the cover of the special issue of Women in Ferroelectrics Research and Development, prepared for the International Day of Women and Girls in Science. As she admits herself, she is stubborn and when she wants something, she pursues it no matter what. In science as in poetry.
The BIVOJ laser has broken its own performance record that it set in 2016. In a recent test, the system was operated for an hour at a pulse energy in excess of 145 J (with a maximum of 146.5 J) in 10 ns pulses at a repetition rate of 10 Hz at a wavelength of 1030 nm.
