News: 2023

Researchers from Prof. Steve Sibener's group have captured the first atomic-scale images of tin on niobium during the growth process of the next generation of particle accelerators, Nb3Sn. 

The University of Chicago has announced the winners of its 2023 Science as Art contest, which highlights images of innovative scientific research from the UChicago community. The grand-prize winner is “Origami in a Tube” by Di Wang, chemist and Ph.D student.

Renowned UChicago PSD astronomer Wendy Freedman will deliver a talk on her work to understand the history and expansion of the universe.

 

Distant planet called Smertrios is very different from Jupiter and Saturn, UChicago-led study finds. It is about three times hotter than the rocky surface of Venus, the hottest planet in our solar system.
 

Fellowship provides exceptional postdoctoral scientists with the opportunity to conduct theoretical, observational, and experimental research in planetary astronomy.

Nine PSD graduate students have been awarded 2023 National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships. The program recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students in NSF-supported science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines who are pursuing research-based master's and doctoral degrees at accredited United States institutions.

Assoc. Prof. Jacob Bean comments on the newly discovered exoplanet Smertrios and its surprising atmospheric composition. 

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

This month PSD researchers have been recognized for their pioneering discoveries, the quality and innovation of their research programs, and their unique contributions to new fields of inquiry. 

PSD’s March spotlight is Ryan Landek, Executive Director of Computing and IT. Ryan joined the Physical Sciences Division on November 2022 to develop, lead, and oversee PSD’s computing and information technology strategy.

Lauren is a third-year UChicago chemistry PhD student, with a bachelor’s in chemistry from UC Davis. She is a synthetic inorganic chemist and works primarily with a carbon and sulfur-based scaffold that she links between transition metals. We interviewed her about her experiences at UChicago. 

A new breakthrough by UChicago scientists shows how to make MXenes far more quickly and easily, with fewer toxic byproducts. Researchers hope the discovery, published March 24 in Science, will spur new innovation and pave the way towards using MXenes in everyday electronics and devices.

Image by Di Wang

By examining the composition of Venus’ atmosphere today and running simulations of its past to recreate those conditions, UChicago researchers found very few scenarios in which Venus could have sustained liquid water and moderate temperatures for long.

Images by NASA/JPL

Prof. Wendy Freedman discusses what the early galaxies discovered by JWST tell us about the early universe with Neil deGrasse Tyson and comedian Matt Kirshen on StarTalk Radio.

New research by Prof. Cheng Chin at UChicago and Shanxi University discovered a way to simulate superconductivity that occurs when two sheets of graphene are slightly twisted as they are layered.

NBC Chicago celebrates pi day with Pi Pizza and UChicago mathematician, Amie Wilkinson.