News

Controlling the chemical structure of matter at the atomic level with light seemed impossible until now. Now, scientists have developed a technique to control photochemical reactions at the level of individual molecules. An international team of researchers, including Tomáš Neuman from the Institute of Physics at CAS, has published a method for controlling molecular dynamics in Nature Nanotechnology. This breakthrough could open a new chapter in photochemistry research.

The Excellent Research call in the Johannes Amos Comenius Programme (P JAC) is one of the most important Czech grant calls with a total allocation of CZK 12.2 billion, which aims to enable Czech research to reach European and global excellence. The Institute of Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences (FZU) has achieved a significant success in this competition and will participate in the investigation of six projects out of the total of 26 projects that received funding in an extremely demanding evaluation process.

An international team of scientists, led by Czech physicists, has successfully developed a unique magnetic nanographene for the first time. They combined two concepts of magnetism and were the first to detect their magnetic signal using advanced scanning electron microscopy and quantum mechanical calculations. Graphene nanoparticles have the potential to be used for information storage and processing in quantum computing.

"A scientific discovery has no merit unless it can be explained to a barmaid.” This quote by Nobel laureate Ernest Rutherford could be applied to the recent achievements of Libor Šmejkal. He was selected from hundreds of nominated scientists to be awarded the Breakthrough Scientific Discovery of the Year 2023 title in the Falling Walls competition for his theoretical work on altermagnetism and non-dissipative nanoelectronics. He was able to explain his discoveries to the general public by comparing a new form of magnetism to the dance of swans. His scientific career illustrates the importance of the role of teachers and mentors and symbolises a commitment to discovery and contribution to scientific knowledge.

In an article published in Nature an international team of scientists breaks down the traditional idea of dividing magnetism into two branches – the ferromagnetic one, known for several millennia, and the antiferromagnetic, discovered about a century ago. Researchers have now succeeded in directly experimentally demonstrating a third altermagnetic branch theoretically predicted by researchers in Prague and Mainz several years ago.

The Institute of Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences organizes the Physics Photography 2024 competition, which this year is thematically dedicated to "transformation".  The main goal of the competition is to popularize the beauty of physics and to break the stereotypes of the perception of this field of science. The photography competition ends with the announcement of winners and an exhibition of the awarded and selected photos during the Night of Scientists, which is organized by the institute in the Na Slovance facility on Friday, September 27, 2024.

The European Space Agency has approved the so-called adoption of the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) mission with a budget of €1.75 billion. A mission adoption is an important milestone in the development of space projects, where the European Space Agency takes a project from the assessment phase to the actual implementation of concepts and technologies.

At the beginning of his New Year's speech, Director Michael Prouza thanked the employees at all three facilities for coping with the difficult situation in 2023, when owing to their joint efforts FZU managed to overcome all the difficulties.

At the end of the year, we decided to help others – specifically children and “aunts” from “Klokánek” in Prague 8, and cancer patients from the day care centre at the The Institute for the Care of Mother and Child in Prague 4. For their benefit we organized the first Christmas fundraiser at FZU.