news 2016

Virtually all membrane proteins have been reported to be organized as clusters on cell surfaces, when in fact many of them are just single proteins which have been counted multiple times. A method developed at TU Wien (Vienna) can now distinguish between both cases. Light cannot be used to image any structures smaller than half its wavelength - for a long time, this was considered to be the ultimate resolution limit in light microscopy.

In an international first, a research team of experimental physicists led by Francesca Ferlaino and theoretical physicists led by Peter Zoller has measured long-range magnetic interactions between ultracold particles confined in an optical lattice. Their work, published in Science, introduces a new control knob to quantum simulation.

Scientists from TU Wien (Vienna) are proposing a new method for creating extremely strong spin currents. They are essential for spintronics, a technology that could replace today's electronics. A laser pulse hits nickel (green). Spin-up-electrons (red) change into silicon (yellow). Electrons with both spin-orientations change back from silicon into nickel.

When current comes in discrete packages: Viennese scientists unravel the quantum properties of the carbon material graphene. In 2010 the Nobel Prize in physics was awarded for the discovery of the exceptional material graphene, which consists of a single layer of carbon atoms arranged in a honeycomb lattice.

Elemental carbon appears in many different forms, including diamond and graphite. Their unique structural, electrical and optical properties have a broad range of potential applications in composite materials and nanoelectronics. Within the "carbon family", only carbyne, the truly one-dimensional form of carbon, has not yet been synthesized; although studied for the last 50 years, its extreme instability in ambient conditions has rendered the final experimental proof of its existence elusive.

From the coating of electronic or pharmaceutical products to thin plastic films - a new technique developed by TU Wien enables coating processes to be quality controlled in real time. When covering large areas with very thin layers of exactly the right thickness in the micrometre or nanometre range, it is easy to make mistakes.

Physicists around Anton Zeilinger have, for the first time, evaluated the almost 100-year long history of quantum delayed-choice experiments - from the theoretical beginnings with Albert Einstein to the latest research works in the present. The extensive study now appeared in the renowned journal "Reviews of Modern Physics".

Researchers at the Institute of Quantum Optics and Quantum Information (IQOQI), the University of Vienna, and the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona have achieved a new milestone in quantum physics: they were able to entangle three particles of light in a high-dimensional quantum property related to the "twist" of their wavefront structure.

Quantum physics is counterintuitive. Many of the phenomena in the quantum world do not have a classical analog: In the quantum world, a coin is not either heads or tails - but can have both properties at the same time. For a better understanding of such phenomena, laboratory experiments are indispensable.

Quantum objects cannot just be understood as the sum of their parts. This is what makes quantum calculations so complicated. Scientists at TU Wien (Vienna) have now calculated Bose-Einstein-condensates, revealing the secrets of the particles? collective behaviour. Quantum systems are extremely hard to analyse if they consist of more than just a few parts.

Using a new synthesis procedure developed at TU Wien, it is now possible to produce the extremely resistant material polyimide in the form of angular particles for the first time. Polyimides withstand extreme heat and chemically aggressive solvents, while being considerably less dense than metals. That is why they are very popular in industry, for example as an insulation layer on PCBs or in aerospace applications.