The Terabotics project, led by Professor Emma MacPherson, which aims to integrate terahertz technology with surgical robotics to help improve cancer diagnosis and treatment has been shortlisted for the Engineer's Collaborate to Innovate Awards 2021.

Find out more about Emma's Terahertz Research Group. 

Quasi-crystals are often alloys of 2-3 metals with a non-periodic arrangement of atoms. Still, they show the highly-peaked diffraction pattern of crystals while also possessing exotic electronic properties such as self-similar electronic spectra and multifractal wave functions usually associated with disordered materials. The level-spacing statistics of energy levels, P(s), with s the difference of adjacent energy levels, is known to be a marker that can distinguish ordered/periodic/metallic from disordered/non-periodic/insulating materials with ordered materials following a so-called Gaussian ensemble statistics. In a recent paper, Grimm and Roemer have shown that the Gaussian ensemble statistics also holds for quasi-periodic systems. Hence quasi-periodic systems seem to defy the usual classification where only ordered/periodic/metallic should show such a Gaussian statistics.

The so-called Planckian limit on scattering of charge carriers is experimentally confirmed in a high-temperature superconductor.

Cells grow and move. In cancer, the growth of one cell type over another is a key hallmark of the disease. But how do cells actually process information on local physical stresses, like pressure?

Researchers from the Department have led and contributed to the 2021 Roadmap for Ultrafast Spectroscopy, highlighting trends and opportunities in the science of probing electron and atom motion on the shortest timescales feasible.

Many congratulations to Drs Elena Cukanovaite, James Gott and Samuele Ferracin, for their success in the 2021 PhD Thesis Prize competition. Elena won the Winton Prize for Astrophysics, James was awarded the Springer Thesis Prize, while Samuele is the recipient of the Faculty of Science and Department of Physics Thesis prize. Read on for more details about the prizes and their research.