Congratulations to Professor Sandra Chapman, who leads the Centre for Fusion Space and Astrophysics on receiving the 2022 Chapman Medal by the Royal Astronomical Society. Professor Chapman received this award for 'paradigm shifting' research into the physics of the solar wind and magnetosphere, our near-earth plasma environment.

Find out more about Sandra's research and the award.

Congratulations to Dr Rebecca Milot and Dr Matt Kenzie who have both secured European Research Council Starting Grants, following the first call for proposals under the EU's new R&I programme, Horizon Europe.

Dr Rebecca Milot has been awarded €2,473,363 to investigate one of the most promising new materials for solar energy conversion, metal halide perovskites.

Dr Matt Kenzie's award of €1,490,202 will aim to enhance our understanding of the physics underpinning the matter-antimatter asymmetry of the universe, which is fundamental in explaining how our universe arrived at its present state.

Read more about the research projects.

The nominations for the Physics Postdoc Prize 2021 were numerous and of an exceptionally high quality this year and it was incredibly difficult to select a “best” paper. After much deliberation the two winners are as follows:

Rosalie Thompson (Cresswell)

Importance of Water in Maintaining Softwood Secondary Cell Wall Nanostructure

Rosalie Cresswell, Ray Dupree, Steven P. Brown, Caroline S. Pereira, Munir S. Skaf, Mathias Sorieul, Paul Dupree, and Stefan Hill

Biomacromolecules 2021, 22, 11, 4669–4680 https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.biomac.1c00937

Water is an integral part of wood; living wood can be deformed beyond its yield point without breaking whereas dried wood will fracture. Rehydration of dried wood does not restore its properties yet, prior to this work, there was no molecular level picture of water’s role. Rosalie led this paper which uses state-of-the-art multidimensional NMR supported by MD modelling to determine the irreversible molecular changes that occur upon drying. It presents a model of a hydrated cellulose microfibril and the changes occurring during the drying and rehydration. The paper has been enthusiastically received with approaching 1000 article views since publication in late October.

Ingrid Pelisoli

A hot subdwarf–white dwarf super-Chandrasekhar candidate supernova Ia progenitor

Ingrid Pelisoli , P. Neunteufel, S. Geier, T. Kupfer, U. Heber, A. Irrgang, D. Schneider, A. Bastian, J. van Roestel, V. Schaffenroth and B. N. Barlow

Nature Astronomy, 5, 1052–1061 (2021) https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-021-01413-0

Over twenty years ago, Type Ia thermonuclear supernovae were key to the discovery of the acceleration of the Universe, but their precise origin is a mystery. Ingrid led a paper published in Nature Astronomy presenting the discovery of a binary star whose 99-minute orbital period makes it an excellent candidate to host a thermonuclear supernova in the future. Ingrid and collaborators applied a combination of leading observational and theoretical techniques to map the future of this exciting system. With this detection, they constrained the supernova rate due to this particular type of binary, shedding light onto the origin of supernovae.

A nationwide competition open to all UK Year 12 female physics students to win an all expenses paid, 4 day trip to the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) world leading science research facility in Grenoble, France.

The group will tour the facilities, conduct experiments, meet the amazing scientists who work there and have the opportunity to tour the beautiful French city of Grenoble.

Find out more information about the opportunity.