Research

Researchers from Institute of Physics in collaboration with Lomonosov Moscow State University elaborated novel photocontrollable photonic crystals based on porous silicon filled with photochromic liquid crystalline mixture. In their recent joint paper, whose figure highlighted the back cover of the November issue of Advanced Optical Materials, they demonstrated that these photonic crystals have great potential for creation of photoswitchable materials for photonics applications.

The “red giants” are an interesting type of huge and bright stars for astronomers. They are considered old even from the cosmic perspective as they have been evolving over a long period of time. Surprisingly, there is only a few of them in the region near the centre of our Galaxy, where an increased presence of younger stars has been revealed instead. A study, proposing a process to explain this anomaly, co-authored by the researchers from the Czech Academy of Sciences, has been published by The Astrophysical Journal.

A domain pattern with multiple polar domain walls in non-polar CaTiO₃ from a review article: “Domain-wall engineering and topological defects in ferroelectric and ferroelastic materials” highlighted the front cover of the November issue of Nature Reviews Physics.

Magnetoelectric multiferroic are materials where the ferroelectric and magnetic ordering can coexist and be mutually coupled. This phenomenon is called magnetoelectric coupling and can in principle be used to improve magnetoelectric memories or other electric-field-controlled spintronic or magnonic devices. Unfortunately, there are a relatively small number of single-phase multiferroics in nature and their magnetoelectric coupling is lower than needed for many applications.

Czech scientists in collaboration with their colleagues from Spain introduced a new type of polymers which have been unavailable by means of traditional methods applied so far. This polymer type could play an important part in the design of new components for nanoelectronics, such as new displays.

In a paper published in Science Advances, Libor Šmejkal with his colleagues from the Institute of Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague reports the discovery of a Hall effect in an antiferromagnet. It is another extraordinary work by an exceptional Czech talent who as a fresh PhD graduate already enjoys the reputation of an internationally leading figure in his field.

During the International Conference on High-Energy Physics (ICHEP 2020), the ATLAS collaboration presented the first observation of photon collisions producing pairs of W bosons, elementary particles that carry the weak force, one of the four fundamental forces. 

Latest observation by GRANDMA network allows scientists to set limits on specific astrophysical phenomena. Astronomers were looking for gravitational waves to see events invisible to optical and radio telescopes.

The results of the NextBase international project, with the participation of scientists from the FZU, have brought hope for the restoration of European competitiveness in the production of solar panels. The project has developed prototypes of solar cell with high efficiency and low-cost potential.