News: Research

Jacob Bean, associate professor in the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, is co-leading a team that plans to use James Webb Space Telescope’s Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) to look at sub-Neptune planets and better model atmosphere composition and circulation.

A team of University of Chicago chemists and biologists including Prof. Yamuna Krishnan developed a tiny device made out of DNA intended to locate tumor cells and force them to reveal themselves to patrolling immune cells.

Students and researchers in the Department of the Geophysical Sciences participated in the recently launched “Winter Grab,” a first of its kind, week-long collection event for regional researchers studying Great Lakes’ winter conditions.

Following the release of the national plan for developing a quantum workforce, educators and leaders in quantum information science came together to discuss the future of quantum education in the US. Computer science professor Diana Franklin was a featured speaker.

A nuclear reactor at an Illinois energy plant is helping University of Chicago scientists learn how to catch and understand the tiny, elusive particles known as neutrinos. Prof. Juan Collar said, “This is the closest that neutrino physicists have been able to get to a commercial reactor core.”

This month PSD researchers have been featured for their efforts to read out a qubit on demand and set a record for preserving quantum states for more than five seconds, to revolutionize the field of 2D materials with a technique to cut and stack fragile sheets of nanomaterials, and to demonstrate ultracold atoms can segregate into separate domain states.

Seymour Goodman Professor of Computer Science Fred Chong comments on a new programming language called Twist that can help scientists discover which qubits in their machines become entangled when working on a problem, and then take specific actions, like only accepting data from an unentangled qubit.

More than a dozen Black scientists made key contributions to the Manhattan Project but their stories have often been overlooked. One of them was Moddie Taylor, SM’39, PhD’43, who worked in the Metallurgical Laboratory—the arm of the Manhattan Project based at UChicago—and went on to lead Howard University chemistry.

NASA has selected University of Chicago associate professor of geophysical sciences, Edwin Kite, to join the Mars Curiosity rover mission as a participating scientist. Kite, along with fourth-year Ph.D. student Sasha Warren, hopes to expand the rover science team’s understanding of climate history on Mars.

Newly announced Sloan Fellow Asst. Prof. Pedro Lopes, Department of Computer Science, was interviewed about his human computer integration research by FOX32 Chicago.

Amgen Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Benoit Roux is leading the effort to build a supercomputing cluster to explore structure and dynamics of biological systems.

An interview with Prof. Jiwoong Park, Department of Chemistry, who talks about his group’s newly engineered crystalline material that is an excellent transmitter of heat in the x-y plane but a thermal insulator in the z plane.

Prof. Cheng Chin’s lab has been able to create a new kind of quantum object at will in the laboratory: “domain walls.” At extremely low temperatures, groups of atoms can segregate into domains, and a “wall” forms at the junction where they met.

A team led by Prof. David Awschalom of physics has achieved two major breakthroughs to overcome common “coherence” challenges for quantum systems: They were able to read out their qubit on demand, and then keep the quantum state intact for over five seconds—a new record for this class of devices. Additionally, the researchers’ qubits are made from an easy-to-use material called silicon carbide, which is widely found in lightbulbs, electric vehicles, and high-voltage electronics.

A new technique in the field of 2D materials led by Dept. of Chemistry and PME Prof. Jiwoong Park cuts fragile sheets of nanomaterials and uses a robotic hand to stack them in layers that can demonstrate targeted interactions. The automation can be customized and optimized.