News

Update 1. 1. 2025 A new comet was spotted on the night of 24–25 December 2024 by scientist Martin Mašek from the Institute of Physics over the western horizon in Argentina. He operated the telescope online from Liberec (city in the Czech Republic). This is the first Czech discovery of a comet where the observer was not physically present in the observatory, and the first Czech discovery from the southern hemisphere. The comet will not appear above our horizon until late February or early March. 

Czech physicist Tomáš Jungwirth is one of the most important figures in contemporary world science thanks to his groundbreaking research in the field of spintronics. In 2024, he gained awards on several prestigious platforms, confirming his key contribution to scientific knowledge.

In the time of advent, for the second time we organized a collection to support the Klokánek in Prague 8, which helps children in difficult life situations.

The family of magnetic materials has been traditionally divided into the ferromagnetic branch known for several millennia and the antiferromagnetic branch known for nearly a century. Researchers from the Institute of Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences have recently made a discovery of a new branch of the magnetic family, termed altermagnetic. 

In December, a new mural dedicated to the only Czech winner of the Nobel Prize in the field of natural sciences, Jaroslav Heyrovský, was ceremoniously unveiled at Ládví. In their work the authors, Josefína Jonášová and Štěpán Jílek, interconnected science, history and the local community.

On Monday, December 2, 2024, it was exactly 50 years to the day since a single issue of Physical Review Letters published three articles, announcing a discovery that fundamentally impacted the further development of our understanding of the laws of the microworld. The first reached the editors on November 12, 1974, the second a day later, and the third on November 18. I will get back to this time sequence later.

The Česká hlava (Czech Head) National Government Award has been presented by the Minister for Science, Research and Innovation to Tomáš Jungwirth from the Institute of Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences. He received the most prestigious scientific award for his contribution to spintronics research. The ceremony of the 23rd edition of the competition brought recognition also to David Vojna, who received the Doctorandus Award for Technical Sciences.

On 18th and 19th November 2024, a traditional workshop organized by the Department of Spintronics and Nanoelectronics of FZU took place in Villa Lanna. The program was divided into thematic lecture blocks encompassing not only the recently discovered family of altermagnetic materials but also superconductivity and terahertz and antiferromagnetic spintronics from both theoretical and experimental points of view.