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Scientists from Austria, Finland and Hungary are using laser scanners to study the day-night rhythm of trees. As it turns out, trees go to sleep too. Most living organisms adapt their behavior to the rhythm of day and night. Plants are no exception: flowers open in the morning, some tree leaves close during the night.

The new concrete tower construction method, which has been developed by TU Wien, offers significant benefits specifically for wind turbines. More and more wind power plants are producing electricity - but what is the best method for building them? The team led by Prof. Johann Kollegger at the Institute of Structural Engineering at TU Wien has developed a new tower construction method which combines the key benefits of the existing methods.

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.

From powder to solid metal pieces - with a bit of technical trickery, processes that are already used successfully for other materials can now also be used for aluminium.

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.

Pole dancing water molecules - Researchers at the TU Wien have seen this remarkable phenomenon on the surface of an important technological material. Perovskites are materials used in batteries, fuel cells, and electronic components, and occur in nature as minerals. Despite their important role in technology, little is known about the reactivity of their surfaces.

Scientists at the Vienna University of Technology (TU Wien) have figured out how a platinum catalyst works. Its remarkable properties are not just due to the platinum, the iron-oxide substrate beneath also plays a role. Left: Tiny platinum nanoparticles on an iron oxide surface. center: H2 gas leads to trenches in the surface.

Plants and bacteria make use of sunlight with remarkably high efficiency: nine out of ten absorbed light particles are being put to use in an ordinary bacterium. For years, it has been a pressing question of modern research whether or not effects from quantum physics are responsible for this outstanding performance of natural light harvesters.

[ Florian Aigner A theoretical trick allows scientists to describe quantum states of thousands of atoms. If standard methods were used, all storage capacity in the world would not be enough to do this. For a long time, quantum experiments were only carried out with a small number of particles. Even the behaviour of single atoms or molecules can be very hard to describe.

[ Florian Aigner Nanostructures etched into the surface: TU Wien develops a new processing technology to improve the electrical properties of glass ceramic circuit boards As you ease your foot off the accelerator, a radar sensor detects how far away you are from the other cars and intelligently adjusts your speed appropriately.

Can neutrons be located at a different place than their own spin? A quantum experiment, carried out by a team of researchers from the Vienna University of Technology, demonstrates a new kind of quantum paradox. The Cheshire Cat featured in Lewis Caroll's novel 'Alice in Wonderland' is a remarkable creature: it disappears, leaving its grin behind.

Vacuum fluctuations may be among the most counter-intuitive phenomena of quantum physics. Theorists from the Weizmann Institute (Rehovot, Israel) and the Vienna University of Technology propose a way to amplify their force. Vacuum is not as empty as one might think. In fact, empty space is a bubbling soup of various virtual particles popping in and out of existence ' a phenomenon called 'vacuum fluctuations'.

Several universities have come together to construct Austria's most powerful mainframe computer. Phase VSC-3 (Vienna Scientific Cluster 3) offers not only impressive computing power, but also serious energy efficiency. Austria's scientific community has a new super computer. Comprising more than 32,000 individual processor cores, the VSC-3 cluster is now being put into operation in the Science Center at Vienna University of Technology (TU Wien).

Modern logic unleashed new areas of mathematics. Even when language and intuition fail, conclusive theories can be constructed with the help of logic. When little children share chocolates, they already have to deal with numbers. Even complicated mathematical objects can often be grasped intuitively.

The calorie free sweetener erythritol is widely used in Asia; it is also gaining popularity in Europe and America.

The great Viennese logician Kurt Gödel studied statements which refer to themselves - and his results shook the foundations of mathematics. "All Cretans are liars", said Epimenides, a Cretan. But this means that his statement must be a lie too. But then it is false that Cretans are liars and the statement must be true.

At the Vienna University of Technology a system of coupled lasers has been created which exhibits truly paradoxical behaviour: An increase in energy supply switches the lasers off, reducing the energy can switch them on. Sound waves fade, water waves ebb, light waves are dissipated by a wall. The absorption of waves is a very common phenomenon.

Using miniaturized laser technology, a tiny sensor has been built at the Vienna University of Technology which can test the chemical composition of liquids. They are invisible, but perfectly suited for analysing liquids and gases; infrared laser beams are absorbed differently by different molecules.

When concrete shells are constructed, they usually have to be supported by elaborate timber structures. A revolutionary technique developed at the Vienna University of Technology now uses inflatable air cushions instead. Large shell structures made of concrete or stone are hardly ever built any more.