Dept News

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.

For all those students joining us this autumn, we are pleased to welcome you to the Department of Physics.

Please visit our welcome page for further information.

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?