Search by tag «Research» 549 results

• What Is Infochemistry? Part 2

  What are electrochemical sensors? How do these systems allow you to assess the state of your health? And what opportunities does the development of information technologies open for scientists in this field? ITMO.NEWS delves into these questions together with the researchers from ITMO University’s Infochemistry Center in the second part of the What Is Infochemistry? illustrated series.

  26.05.2020

• Researchers Develop Material Capable of Being Transparent or Reflective in IR Spectrum

  Modern optical devices require constant tuning of their light interaction settings. Lenses need to change focus, lidars have to emit and receive light at different angles. For that purpose, there exist various mechanical apparatuses that shift lenses, rotate reflectors, and move emitters. But what if they all were to become unnecessary? An international research team that includes staff members of ITMO University and the University of Exeter have proposed a new metamaterial capable of changing its optical properties without any mechanical input. This development could result in a significant improvement in the reliability of complex optical devices while making them cheaper to manufacture. The study was featured on the cover of the May 2020 issue of Optica.

  25.05.2020

• A Quantum Walk Forward: Researchers Find Way to Discern Cases of Effective and Ineffective Quantum Computation

  Quantum computers are becoming increasingly common in the headlines of high tech publications. Giants like Google and IBM fight for supremacy in the field of quantum computing. Every once in a while, prototypes are exhibited at high tech fairs. But, as scientists point out, science still hasn’t solved the fundamental problems that would define the effectiveness of quantum computers. One such problem was tackled in a recent article by an international research team that includes staff members of ITMO University. The study was featured on the cover of Advanced Quantum Technologies.

  20.05.2020

• Four ITMO University Students Receive SPIE Optics and Photonics Education Scholarship

  Four young researchers from ITMO University were chosen to receive the prestigious scholarship of the Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). The results of the scholarship competition have been recently announced on the SPIE website. SPIE annually supports students and PhD researchers working in promising fields. The scholarship is meant to cover attendance of SPIE conferences, participation in educational courses, and purchasing learning materials. Read on to learn more about the research interests and future plans of the scholarship recipients. 

  20.05.2020

• From Digital to Optical: Scientists Demonstrate the Work of First Chemically Synthesized Optical Switch

  Today, scientists from all over the world face the task of creating optical switches. These devices will allow for transmitting information in binary code with the help of light, which in the future will be useful for the development of ultrafast optical memory cells. ITMO University scientists have demonstrated how to create, using a femtosecond laser, an all‐optical switch based on a metal‐organic framework which can be synthesized in vitro and is usually used in chemistry for gas absorption. The research has been published in the journal Angewandte Chemie.

  19.05.2020

• ITMO University Specialists Find Out How Much St. Petersburg Citizens Trust Online Shops, Communication on Social Media, and Online Banking

  Specialists from the eGovernment Center of ITMO University’s Institute of Design & Urban Studies have conducted a research on the degree to which St. Petersburg residents trust modern technologies, both generally and in specific spheres of life. In particular, the sociologists tried to determine how much the citizens trust online shopping, communicating with government agencies on the internet, and data security on social networks. The work is conducted within the framework of the Russian Foundation for Basic Research project No. 18-311-20001 “The study of cyber-social trust in the context of the use and renouncement of information technologies”. ITMO.NEWS contacted the project’s head Lyudmila Vidyasova to find out what conclusions the researchers came to. 

  18.05.2020

• Scientists Report on Crucial Reduction of Indian Lion Genome Diversity

  Modern bioinformatics allows us to take a look into the past and find out when certain species diverged during evolution, which of them still are genetically close to each other, and which are not. An international team of researchers, which, among others, includes the academic supervisor of ITMO University’s Laboratory of Genomic Diversity and researchers from the University of Copenhagen, Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology, and other research centers from all over the world, analyzed the genomes of extinct and living lions. They managed to determine when the divergence took place, as well as come to several other conclusions on genetic diversity of the modern lion population in India. The results are published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

  14.05.2020

• ITMO University’s NTI FoodNet Curator Olga Orlova: the Pandemic Will Make Food Safety a Long-Term Trend

  Early 2020 was a highly unclear time for the food tech industry. On the one hand, the coronavirus pandemic has led to a mass closing of restaurants and reduced demand for the products of food production facilities; on the other hand, it brought about a boom in the food and grocery delivery market. It is already clear that even when the period of self-isolation is over, the industry will take a while to come back to the way it was in late 2019. We spoke to Olga Orlova, the head of Infochemistry Scientific Center’s food tech digitization team and ITMO University’s representative as the curator of National Technological Initiative’s FoodNet program, about what awaits the industry in the near future and what kind of specialists it will require.

  12.05.2020

• Scientists Use Lasers and Gold Particles to Turn Titanium Oxide Into Nanocomposite for Photocatalysts

  Oxides of different metals often serve as photocatalysts in various systems such as air purification, reactions of water decomposition and even in the production of self-cleaning surfaces for glass and mirrors. The physical-chemical properties of such materials can be improved by adding nanoparticles, which turn an ordinary oxide into a nanomaterial with new capabilities. To successfully perform this, however, it is necessary to understand the processes going on as a nanocomposite is being formed, and to be able to control them. ITMO University researchers together with their colleagues from France and the USA have demonstrated how a femtosecond laser can be used to tune the structure and nanocomposite properties for titanium dioxide films filled with gold nanoparticles. The paper was published in ACS The Journal of Physical Chemistry C. 

  12.05.2020

• Optical “Nanomixer”: Scientists Propose New Method for Mixing Liquids

  Every now and then, scientists need to control the process of mixing liquids in vessels so small that the thinnest needle or even a hair won’t fit in there. At the same time, controlling the diffusion speed of molecules in the so-called microreactors is extremely important for the purposes of designing new drugs, conducting biological experiments and even diagnosing diseases fast enough. Scientists from ITMO University and their colleagues from the Czech Academy of Sciences proposed to solve this problem by using the energy of light. Their research has been published in Advanced Science.

  04.05.2020