news 2017

A remarkable discovery was made at TU Wien recently, when particles known as 'Weyl fermions' were discovered in materials with strong interaction between electrons. Just like light particles, they have no mass but nonetheless they move extremely slowly. There was great excitement back in 2015, when it was first possible to measure these 'Weyl fermions' - outlandish, massless particles that had been predicted almost 90 years earlier by German mathematician, physician and philosopher, Hermann Weyl.

By Birgit Baustädter The research area of molecular electronics focuses on miniaturisation. It's a further development of microelectronics and deals with circuits at the molecular level. Electronic objects of daily life are becoming increasingly smaller - but at the same time more powerful and efficient.

A new imaging technique, Electrical Impedance Tomography (EIT), will soon be used to monitor important bodily functions. A collaborative project between TU Wien, the Medical University of Vienna and the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna, has enabled significant progress to be made with this technology.

Magnetic quantum objects in superconductors, so-called "fluxons", are particularly suitable for the storage and processing of data bits. Computer circuits based on fluxons could be operated with significantly higher speed and, at the same time, produce much less heat dissipation. Physicists around Wolfgang Lang at the University of Vienna and their colleagues at the Johannes-Kepler-University Linz have now succeeded in producing a "quantum egg-box" with a novel and simple method.

By Andreas Wimmer In order to meet ambitious environmental goals, research around the world must rise to the challenge of developing innovative and sustainable solutions in the areas of mobility, transportation and power generation. The question often arises in connection with electric mobility whether there will be any need to conduct research on internal combustion engines in the future.

The 'quantized magneto-electric effect' has been demonstrated for the first time in topological insulators at TU Wien, which is set to open up new and highly accurate methods of measurement. A light wave sent through empty space always oscillates in the same direction. However, certain materials can be used to rotate the direction in which the light is oscillating when placed in a magnetic field.

Nowadays we communicate via radio signals and send electrical pulses through long cables. This could change soon, however: Scientists have been working intensely on developing methods for quantum information transfer. This would enable tap-proof data transfer or, one day, even the linking of quantum computers.