Research

What’s cooler than breaking a record? Breaking it twice! Last week, physicists from ITMO University got to do just that. Their object of pride is the world’s smallest nanolaser, with a beam mere 200 nm in size. What makes this ultra-tiny invention remarkable is not only its size, but its manufacturability. The tech will serve as a potential building element for both professional equipment (such as medical devices) and consumer electronics (wellness trackers and VR tech). 

Read more: Record-Breaking: Tiny Nanolasers for Ultracompact Chips Developed at ITMO

***

The world of anti-counterfeiting technologies is always evolving in response to the latest challenges. One technique now studied by researchers is the combined laser printing of grayscale and color images. A recent paper by scientists from the Faculty of Physics describes one such method, which also involves metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) – another hot topic in science. During printing, laser radiation imbues this new material with unique “fingerprints” on a very small scale, making it virtually impossible to reproduce.

Read more: ITMO Researchers Use Hybrid Crystal to Enable Simultaneous Grayscale and Color Direct Laser Writing

***

If you’ve been following our reporting, or science news in general, you’ve heard plenty about BICs – or bound states in the continuum. But what does this complex quantum mechanics concept stand for? And what is it good for, anyway? ITMO.NEWS spoke with the researcher Zarina Konratenko to lay out an accessible explanation that will clear it up once and for all. 

Read more: Bound States in the Continuum: Theory and Applications

Education

With the admissions campaign fully underway, ITMO University has been steadily unveiling a lineup of all-new educational programs. One such program is called Cybersecurity and is developed by ITMO in collaboration with Positive Technologies, a prominent Russian developer of infosec solutions. The program, offered in Russian, features two specializations (focused on SOCs and AI) and will offer a curriculum designed to teach students to repel cyberattacks and generate security strategies.

Read more: ITMO University and Positive Technologies To Train All-Round Cybersecurity Experts

***

Another new educational offering for Master’s students is a program by ITMO’s acclaimed Advanced Engineering School. Students of Applied Genomics will find themselves at the forefront of bioinformatics research, dealing with matters of medicine, agriculture, and life sciences. As put succinctly by the program’s new head, researcher Mikhail Raiko, “bioinformatics is concerned with the three main questions about humans: where we’re from, who we are, and where we’re going.”

Read more: Bioinformatics Studies at ITMO’s Advanced Engineering School: Behind the Scenes

***

Campus air is dense with tension: thesis defense season is looming closer. How do I prepare? What precautions do I take? What do I wear? We’ve decided to answer these questions through a uniquely Russian medium of purposefully bad advice. How does that work, you may ask: click on our guide and find out!

Read more: How Not to Defend Your Thesis: Our Best (Worst) Advice