News

An international team of scientists using the Gemini Observatory telescope in Chile has found a way to measure the amount of both water and carbon monoxide in the atmosphere of a planet in another solar system, roughly 340 light years away.

This month PSD researchers have been featured for their efforts to create materials that can move and block heat, use a massive accelerator to analyze dust from an asteroid, and build wearable devices for signing ASL and playing piano.

On Nov. 4, the fourth annual Chicago Quantum Summit will bring together academic, government, and industry leaders to discuss how the field can strengthen and expand the quantum ecosystem, on local and global scales.

Four complementary analyses released by the international MicroBooNE collaboration at Fermi National Laboratory show the same thing: no sign of the theoretical particle known as the sterile neutrino. Instead, the results align with the Standard Model of Particle Physics prediction: there are only three kinds of neutrinos.

Two members of the Physical Sciences Division are among those who will be honored in the American Physical Society’s Spring 2022 Prizes and Awards. IMSI Director Phillip (Bo) Hammer was recognized as part of the TEAM-UP Task Force for the 2022 Excellence in Physics Education Award. Prof. Giulia Galli of molecular engineering and chemistry was recognized with the 2022 Aneesur Rahman Prize for Computational Physics.

Vitali Prakapenka, Research Professor with Center for Advanced Radiation Sources (CARS), GSECARS, is among a group of beamline scientists who have seen a new state of matter at high temperature and pressure called superionic ice. With the help of several powerful tools, they have found a way to reliably create, sustain, and examine the ice, which will inform new understandings of planetary formation.

Chemistry professor and director of the new QuBBE initiative, Greg Engel, explains the convergence between the sensitivity that is possible with quantum measurement and the absolute need in biology to understand things on exactly these scales, a combination that makes quantum biosensing the frontier of biological measurements.

Researchers at the University of Chicago, Argonne National Laboratory, and institutions in Japan, Korea, and Hungary published a blueprint for a class of materials that is quickly emerging as an important player in quantum science: crystals with defects.

Prof. David Awschalom of physics comments on the big obstacles to creating commercial spintronic devices or shrinking conventional data storage.

On September 14, 2021, the GMTO Corporation welcomed the Weizmann Institute of Science into its international consortium of distinguished universities and research institutions building the Giant Magellan Telescope, which includes the University of Chicago. The new partnership reinforces that completing the largest and most powerful Gregorian optical-infrared telescope ever engineered is a top priority for the global scientific community.

Asst. Prof. Edwin Kite, Department of the Geophysical Sciences, responds to a new study on Martian terrain that suggests the ‘lake’ believed to be at the landing site of NASA's Curiosity Mars rover may have only been a series of smaller, transient puddles.

PSD’s October spotlight is Sarah Lippert, newly appointed Assistant Dean of Students in the Physical Sciences Division. Sarah has been with the University of Chicago since December 2008.
 

Philip (Bo) Hammer, Executive Director of IMSI, has been awarded the 2022 Excellence in Physics Education Award from APS. Hammer was cited for his work creating a national task force on the underrepresentation of African Americans in physics & astronomy.

Assistant Prof. Mark Levin of the Dept. of Chemistry has received a 2021 Packard Fellowship in Science and Engineering. Levin is one of 20 early-career scientists and engineers nationwide to receive the fellowship, providing $875,000 over five years to support his research into inventing a new chemical reaction that can “live-edit” molecules down to the level of single-atom precision.

Duality, the nation’s first accelerator focused exclusively on supporting quantum science and technology companies, has announced that Amazon Web Services is among its first corporate supporters, along with Caruso Ventures, Lathrop GPM LLP, McDonnell Boehnen Hulbert & Berghoff, Silicon Valley Bank, and Toptica Photonics to support its inaugural cohort of six startups, and help fuel quantum innovation in Chicago and the region.