Departmental news

Commenting on the discovery of ancient organic molecules on Mars by NASA's Curiosity rover, Dr Daniel Bayliss, assistant professor in the Astronomy and Astrophysics group at the University of Warwick, said: "Today we learnt of the breakthrough discovery of organic compounds on Mars. This is so exciting because these compounds could be formed by living organisms. The quest now will be to try to find out the origins of these compounds. Evidence for life on Mars may tell us how easy or hard it is for life to start on other planets, which has far reaching implications for life elsewhere in our Galaxy.”

A team led by Marin Alexe has published new research in the journal Science that could literally squeeze more power out of solar cells by physically deforming each of the crystals in the semiconductors used by photovoltaic cells. The paper entitled the “Flexo-Photovoltaic Effect” was written by Professor Marin Alexe, Ming-Min Yang, and Dong Jik Kim.

A hot, metallic, Earth-sized planet with a density similar to Mercury - situated 339 light years away - has been detected and characterised by a global team of astronomers, including the University of Warwick.

Professor Andrew Levan – who played a significant role in the internationally acclaimed 2017 gravitational waves discovery that demonstrated the origin of gold – is announced as a Finalist in the Physical Sciences & Engineering category, winning $30,000.

Zinco UK Limited and Sonemat Limited have signed an agreement to use ultrasonic probe technology developed from research which was first conducted at the University of Warwick. The new probe technology can conduct safety critical testing inside galvanizing kettles equipment while still holding molten zinc at 450°C.

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Twenty-six members of staff from the Physics Department joined colleagues from across the Faculty of Science in signing a submission to a House of Commons Education Committee Inquiry into the impact of exiting the European Union on Higher Education. As well as discussing the effect on undergraduate and postgraduate students, a particular focus was on the effect on staff who are non-UK EU nationals (this corresponds to over 20% of Warwick academic staff), notably the continued lack of assurance from government of their status and that of their families. The submission also emphasised the great benefit of freedom of movement of European researchers for ensuring the UK is at the forefront of scientific research, as well as damage that would be done if UK scientists lose access to prestiguous European funding, notably European Research Council grants where the department has been very successful recently.

"The 66^th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting took place from June 26 to July 1 2016 on the beautiful island of Lindau, Germany, where 29 Nobel laureates, 400 young scientists and many other distinguished guests were welcomed." says Edo Carnio.

With the aim of encouraging women to work in science, the EPSRC-funded beamline XMaS at the ESRF run a project every year taking female Physics students, aged 16–17 years, to Grenoble to visit the facilities.

On 4th-7th July 16 girls visited the ESRF and participated in the Synchrotron@school programme...

The most Earth-like planet could have been made uninhabitable by vast quantities of radiation, new research led by Dr Dave Armstrong of the Astronomy Group has found. The atmosphere of the planet, Kepler-438b, is thought to have been...

A team of researchers from the Astrophysics Group led by Tom Louden discovered winds of over 2km per second flowing around a planet outside of the Earth’s solar system.

“This is the first ever weather map from outside of our solar system. Whilst we have previously known of wind on exoplanets, we have never before been able to directly measure and map a weather system.”