news 2018

Atomically thin crystals will play an ever greater role in future - but how can their crystallisation process be controlled? A new method is now opening up new possibilities. They are among the thinnest structures on earth: "two dimensional materials" are crystals which consist of only one or a few layers of atoms.

What effect does water have on ultra-clean surfaces' Using a novel method, researchers at TU Wien and Cornell University have succeeded in demonstrating that smallest impurities can have a surprising effect. In nature there is no such thing as a truly clean surface. Contact with normal air is sufficient to coat any material with a thin layer of molecules.

Authentication on certain websites via Facebook or Google accounts can be risky, but use of a browser extension from TU Wien eliminates the problem. We all knew this familiar scenario: to be able to use specific features of a website you need to log in, but creating an individual account for every single site is tedious.

Chemists from the University of Vienna finally find a surprisingly simple reaction to make a family of bioactive molecules Many natural products and drugs feature a so-called dicarbonyl motif - in certain cases however their preparation poses a challange to organic chemists. In their most recent work, Nuno Maulide and his coworkers from the University of Vienna present a new route for these molecules.

Researchers from TU Graz and their industry partners have unveiled a world first: the prototype of a robot-controlled, high-speed combined charging system (CCS) for electric vehicles. that enables series charging of cars in various parking positions. Pictures available for download at the end of the message.

In order to better understand important biological membranes, it is necessary to explore new methods. Researchers at TU Wien (Vienna) have succeeded in creating an artificial placental barrier on a chip, using a high-resolution 3D printing process. The placenta has an essential and highly complex task: it must ensure the exchange of important substances between the mother and her unborn child, whilst simultaneously blocking other substances from passing through.

By Vera Haberfellner The availability of clean drinking water is not automatic. The 'Energy Aware Systems' working group of EMT is working on an energetically self-sufficient and sustainable water desalination plant. In many parts of the world, there is a shortage of clean drinking water. Climate change is aggravating the situation through more intensive periods of drought and increasingly occurring extreme weather conditions.

By Christian Sturmbauer und Konstantinos Tzivanopoulos University of Graz, Graz University of Technology together with an international research team discover new mechanisms of speciation Animals that migrated or have been introduced in Central Europe - such as the Asian bush mosquito or the Asian ladybeetle - feel extremely comfortable in their new homes due to changing climatic conditions.

Dyes that are also of great interest for organic electronics have recently been prepared and crystallised at TU Wien. All that is required is just water, albeit under highly unusual conditions. They not only impress due to their radiant and intense colour, they also have an important technological significance: organic dyes are a class of materials with extremely special properties.

A high-precision experiment led by TU Wien has set its sights on pinpointing the so-far hypothetical "symmetron fields" using the PF2 ultra-cold neutron source at the Institut Laue-Langevin in France. For the existence of symmetrons could provide an explanation for the mysterious dark energy. One thing is certain: there's something out there we don't yet know.

By Werner Schandor In the CHIP project, Ceratizit Austria, TU Darmstadt, Material Center Leoben and TU Graz are improving the recording and analysis of heat flows in milling machining. With sensational results. "What is sensational about our project can be found hidden away in this rather inconspicuous chart," says Franz Haas from the Institute of Production Engineering as he points to a diagram reproducing a saw-toothed temperature progression for the period of a tenth of a second (Figure 2).

TU Wien has succeeded in shaping terahertz beams with extremely high precision. All that is needed for this is a simple plastic screen from a 3D printer. Terahertz radiation can be used for a wide variety of applications and is used today for airport security checks just as much as it is for material analysis in the lab.

All matter is composed of atoms, which are too small to see without powerful modern instruments including electron microscopes. The same electrons that form images of atomic structures can also be used to move atoms in materials. This technique of single-atom manipulation, pioneered by University of Vienna researchers, is now able to achieve nearly perfect control over the movement of individual silicon impurity atoms within the lattice of graphene, the two-dimensional sheet of carbon.

A wave manipulation concept developed at TU Wien has now been tested for the first time in an experiment. The technique allows sound waves to be guided effortlessly through complex structures. We are constantly dealing with waves that are deflected in complex ways: this could be a light beam passing through a glass of milk and being dispersed in all directions, or electromagnetic waves from mobile phone masts being dispersed or absorbed, causing us to complain about poor reception in indoor areas.

Summer is the high season for thunderstorms and their resulting lightning and hail storms. TU Graz researchers Stephan Pack and Helmut Paulitsch get to the bottom of this summer phenomenon in their research work. No sooner has the temperature gone up, than the probability of thunderstorms increases.

By Eberhard Schutting New types of vehicles have to prove their conformity to emission standards in thetype approval test. Previous procedures were criticized for insufficiently reflecting the real driving pattern. Thus, end of 2017, the regulatory authorities (the EC) introduced a new test procedure that includes the measurement of emissions during real¬world driving, commonly known as RDE legislation (Real Driving Emissions).

By Siegfried Hörmann With increasing complexity and the rapidly growing amount of data collected in almost all areas of our life, it becomes more difficult to draw meaningful conclusions and to filter relevant information. The field of statistics has seen a big upsurge due to such new challenges. My research is devoted to some of these challenges.

Microbioreactors with integrated sensors enable improved and well-controlled reaction conditions to be produced and are increasingly used in biocatalysis, process optimisation, diagnosis and cell culturing. Microbioreactors are miniaturised bioreactors with structures on the micrometre scale. They are a special field of microfluidics or lab-on-chip technology and consist of chambers and channels in sizes from 10 um to 3 mm and depths from 10 to 800 um.

By Cecilia Poletti The Christian Doppler Laboratory for Design of High-Performance Alloys by Thermomechanical Processing has recently opened. The leading team, Cecilia Poletti and Friedrich Krumphals, will introduce it. The motivation behind the CD-Laboratory is given by the complexity of simultaneously physical phenomena taking place during industrial processes that involve plastic deformation and heat, as well as during service under thermomechanical loads.

A team at TU Wien now has the proof behind the speculations that water molecules can form complex bridge-like structures when they accumulate on mineral surfaces. Water is an extremely complex liquid. The way in which separate water molecules accumulate on various materials has a crucial impact on a great many processes, including corrosion and weathering, and is key in ensuring that catalysts function optimally.