Search by tag «Metamaterials» 51 results

• Quantum Computers, Dark Matter, and New Materials: Latest from Theoretical Physics

  Imagine a physicist. Is it someone in a lab, wearing a white coat and protective goggles? This might be what some physicists look like, but sometimes they only need a pen and a sheet of paper to come up with life-changing discoveries. This is the domain of theoretical physicists: the results of their research often lay the groundwork for break-through technologies. Why is theoretical physics no less exciting than experimental one? What are its current hot topics – and what are the challenges? Read on for answers from participants of the ISCTP 2024 conference on theoretical physics.

  30.08.2024

• ITMO’s Monday Science Roundup #53

  Hello, greetings, and welcome! In today’s review of recent updates courtesy of ITMO.NEWS, we’re looking at three major stories: an exciting research breakthrough from the realm of photonics, an array of fresh ideas by the university’s brightest young scientists, and the launch of this year’s admissions campaign.

  22.04.2024

• Researchers Note Topological Effects in New Waveguide Metamaterial

  A novel waveguide-based metamaterial, suggested by physicists from ITMO University and their colleagues from University of Chile, has been shown to exhibit topological states. Upon contact with the edge of a sample, the light that passes through the lattice is nearly never distributed inside the structure, unlike in traditional waveguide gratings. The findings were published in Nano Letters. 

  16.04.2024

• Well-Known but Never Observed: Dark Matter Explained

  Researchers worldwide are speeding up particles in colliders and digging deep underground to find axions or WIMPs. No, these are not superhero codenames – but hypothetical particles that are some of the proposed candidates for dark matter. What is dark matter? Why is it worth studying? And how can scholars see the unseen? Let’s find out with Dmitry Glazov, a senior researcher at ITMO’s Faculty of Physics.

  23.10.2023

• 6 World-Changing Breakthroughs in Modern Physics

  From quantum computers to graphene and the Higgs boson, the last 30 years have seen quite a few significant breakthroughs in physics. What do these discoveries mean and how can they be implemented? Let’s find out what Dmitry Pobedinsky, the host of the YouTube channel Physics by Pobedinsky, has to say about it.

  11.10.2023

• A Material Simulating Dark Matter Particles Described

  A research team from ITMO University has devised a metamaterial that may be used to investigate the properties of axions, also known as dark matter candidates. The paper was co-authored by Frank Wilczek, a laureate of the Nobel Prize in Physics, and published in Physical Review B.

  06.09.2023

• Improving Lasers: ITMO Scientists Suggest a New Way to Couple Light and Matter

  A new approach has been suggested at ITMO to enhance interaction of light and matter during metamaterials production. Compared to conventional methods, the novel approach requires less precision and relies on cheaper equipment, while producing more compact and sensitive lasers. The study was described in an article published in Nano Letters. 

  20.07.2023

• ITMO Scientists Develop Ultracompact Optical Switch

  The new device includes a structure of single-atom semiconductors and an ultracompact nanoresonator. The switching is conducted with light, via changes in the exciton states in each of the two semiconductor layers. Thanks to its ultracompact size (10 nanometers long and 1.5 nanometers thick), the device can be placed on a chip for use as a logic element in computers for optical information processing. The results of this study, conducted in collaboration with Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH, South Korea), are described in an article published in ACS Nano. 

  22.03.2023

• Optical Innovations: ITMO Researchers Create Controllable On-Chip Topological States

  A research team featuring scientists from ITMO University and the City University of New York has successfully created controllable topological states that can be selectively excited on a silicon chip. This is the first time that such an effect was induced in the infrared range and inside a structure just a few microns in size. As proved in the article published in Nano Letters, the flexible control mechanism, as well as its on-chip implementation, can serve as a foundation for disorder-robust optical microchips.

  15.03.2023

• ITMO Researchers Develop Novel Strategy to Tailor Photonic Topological Insulators

  The team of ITMO University’s frontier laboratory Probing Fundamental Physics with Topological Metamaterials have proposed a new method of engineering photonic topological structures. At its core is the manipulation of topological properties via mutual orientation of meta-atoms. In an article published by Laser & Photonics Reviews, the physicists have theoretically and experimentally demonstrated topological edge and corner states. These results should prove instrumental in making another step towards the use of topological structures in photonic meta-devices.

  11.10.2022