Physicists at the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics (MPQ) and Ludwig-Maximilian University in Munich (LMU) have used ultrashort laser pulses to probe the dynamics of photoelectron emission in tungsten crystals. When light impinges on matter, the electrons in the sample respond to the input of energy, and the interaction gives rise to what is known as the photoelectric effect. Light quanta (photons) are absorbed by the material and excite the bound electrons. Depending on the wavelength of the light…
University Hospital Tübingen cooperates with ImaginAb and is Europe’s first center for the production of radiolabeled CD8 minibodies. The Preclinical Imaging and Radiopharmacy Department of the University Hospital Tübingen and ImaginAb, a global market leading biotech company, are cooperating in the field of cancer immunotherapy. Under the terms of the collaboration, ImaginAb will provide Tübingen University Hospital with its CD8 ImmunoPET agent who will radioactively label these so-called CD8 minibodies for non-invasive imaging of a specific group of immune cells…
Flexible control of the propagating direction of near-field light can be realized with hyperbolic metamaterials, using an all-electric metasource. Near-field light is invisible light at the subwavelength scale. Harnessed for a variety of practical applications, such as wireless power transfer, near-field light has an increasingly significant role in the development of miniature on-chip photonic devices. Controlling the direction of near-field light propagation has been an ongoing challenge that is of fundamental interest in photonics physics and can significantly advance a…
Measuring the process in unprecedented detail gives them clues to how to minimize the problem and protect battery performance. When lithium ions flow in and out of a battery electrode during charging and discharging, a tiny bit of oxygen seeps out and the battery’s voltage – a measure of how much energy it delivers – fades an equally tiny bit. The losses mount over time, and can eventually sap the battery’s energy storage capacity by 10-15%. Now researchers have measured…
By mapping the motion of galaxies in huge filaments that connect the cosmic web, astronomers at the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP), in collaboration with scientists in China and Estonia, have found that these long tendrils of galaxies spin on the scale of hundreds of millions of light years. A rotation on such enormous scales has never been seen before. The results published in Nature Astronomy signify that angular momentum can be generated on unprecedented scales. Cosmic filaments are…
Researchers have succeeded for the first time in demonstrating the role of hypothalamic astrocytes in obesity-related hypertension. In addition, they showed that the hormone leptin is involved in the increase of blood vessels in the hypothalamus of obese mice, contributing of hypertension. Helmholtz Zentrum München led the study and collaborated with Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, the Technical University of Munich and the German Diabetes Center. Hypertension is a widespread comorbidity of patients with obesity that greatly increases the risk of mortality and…
Major advances in plasma modelling and simulation / Prediction instead of interpretation. A recent publication from Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP) on the theoretical prediction of a novel transport barrier in a fusion plasma and its subsequent experimental confirmation (Physical Review Letters) exemplifies how dramatically the power of plasma simulations and modelling has grown in recent years. A Europe-wide project on plasma theory and simulation is to enhance this development. The aim is to create virtual plasma models…
A new high-performance plastic foam developed from whey proteins can withstand extreme heat better than many common thermoplastics made from petroleum. A research team in Sweden reports that the material, which may be used for example in catalysts for cars, fuel filters or packaging foam, actually improves its mechanical performance after days of exposure to high temperatures. Reporting in Advanced Sustainable Systems, researchers from KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm say the research opens the door to using protein-based…
Study could help engineers build more efficient magnetic materials for computers. A study led by University of Minnesota Twin Cities researchers uncovered a property of magnetic materials that will allow engineers to develop more efficient spintronic devices in the future. Spintronics focuses on using the magnetic “spin” property of electrons instead of their charge, which improves the speed and efficiency of devices used for computing and data storage. The research is published in Physical Review B, a peer-reviewed scientific journal…
Researchers of the 3D matter made to order cluster of excellence use rotons for metamaterials – Nature Communications publishes first results. Acoustic waves in gases, liquids, and solids usually travel at an almost constant speed of sound. So-called rotons are an exception: their speed of sound changes significantly with the wavelength, and it is also possible that the waves travel backwards. Researchers at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) are studying the possibilities of using rotons in artificial materials. These computer-designed…
Organic semiconductors have earned a reputation as energy efficient materials in organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs) that are employed in large area displays. In these and in other applications, such as solar cells, a key parameter is the energy gap between electronic states. It determines the wavelength of the light that is emitted or absorbed. The continuous adjustability of this energy gap is desirable. Indeed, for inorganic materials an appropriate method already exists – the so-called blending. It is based…
Penn scientists have developed a new method for tracing the lineage and gene expression patterns of metastatic cancer at the single-cell level. It’s often cancer’s spread, not the original tumor, that poses the disease’s most deadly risk. “And yet metastasis is one of the most poorly understood aspects of cancer biology,” says Kamen Simeonov, an M.D.-Ph.D. student at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. In a new study, a team led by Simeonov and School of Veterinary Medicine…
A new imaging technique has the potential to detect neurological disorders–such as Alzheimer’s disease–at their earliest stages, enabling physicians to diagnose and treat patients more quickly. Termed super-resolution, the imaging methodology combines position emission tomography (PET) with an external motion tracking device to create highly detailed images of the brain. This research was presented at the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging’s 2021 Virtual Annual Meeting. In brain PET imaging, the quality of the images is often limited by…
Physicists have long suspected that dielectric materials may significantly disrupt ion-trap quantum computers. Now, researchers led by Tracy Northup have developed a new method to quantify this source of error for the first time. For the future operation of quantum computers with very many quantum bits, such noise sources need to be eliminated already during the design process if possible. Quantum technologies are based on quantum properties of light, electrons, and atoms. In recent decades, scientists have learned to master…
An international team of researchers has identified the cause of a rare, severe muscle disease. According to these findings, a single spontaneously occurring mutation results in the muscle cells no longer being able to correctly break down defective proteins. As a result, the cells perish. The condition causes severe heart failure in children, accompanied by skeletal and respiratory muscle damage. Those affected rarely live beyond the age of 20. The study also highlights experimental approaches for potential treatment. Whether this…
The team say their findings have implications for the treatment of viruses in future. Researchers from the Universities of York and Leeds, collaborating with the Hilvert Laboratory at the ETH Zürich, studied the structure, assembly and evolution of a ‘container’ composed of a bacterial enzyme. The study – published in the journal Science – details the structural transformation of these virus-like particles into larger protein ‘containers’. It also reveals that packaging of the genetic cargo in these containers becomes more…
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