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Tiny plastic particles are an environmental problem. They can even penetrate living cells. A method has now been developed at TU Wien to detect such particles quickly and with high sensitivity. It is well known that microplastics are a problem: They are tiny, barely visible plastic particles that can harm the environment, for example, if they are eaten by animals.

The friction in our joints is extremely low - how is that physically possible at all? Measurements at TU Wien provide explanations and ideas for new treatment methods . Friction and wear as an eternal nuisance - this is as familiar in technology as it is in medicine. Whether it's a manual transmission or a knee joint, you always want moving parts to slide over each other with as little friction as possible, so that energy expenditure and wear are kept to a minimum.

Lubricants that reduce friction are created precisely where friction is high: At TU Wien, this was achieved with special 2D materials. This is important for space technology . Our bodies have a few things in common with machines: we have moving joints, friction and wear occur, so you need suitable lubricants.

At TU Wien (Vienna, scientists use microscopy techniques to observe chemical reactions on catalysts more precisely than before yielding a wealth of detail. This made clear why some effects cannot be predicted. Catalysts composed from tiny metal particles play an important role in many areas of technology - from fuel cells to production of synthetic fuels for energy storage.

At the Vienna University of Technology, a breakthrough was achieved in the production of important enzymes: Previously, they were extracted from horseradish roots (horseradish), but now a precise, clean, synthetic production was achieved in the laboratory . It is one of the most important enzymes in medical diagnostics: The so-called - Horseradish Peroxidase- (Horseradish Peroxidase) is used for many medical devices - often it is used when a color change of a test strip is to detect the presence of antibodies or other proteins.

New techniques can answer questions that were previously inaccessible experimentally - including questions about the relationship between quantum mechanics and relativity. The theory of relativity works well when you want to explain cosmic-scale phenomena - such as the gravitational waves created when black holes collide.

Tiny tips on cantilevers are used to scan a surface in an atomic force microscope. A new invention from TU Wien now provides a simpler way to measure the result. The basic principle of the atomic force microscope is very simple: an extremely thin, movable tip on a cantilever is moved over a surface that is being examined.

An artificial intelligence developed at TU Wien (Vienna) can suggest appropriate treatment steps in cases of blood poisoning. The computer has already surpassed humans in this respect. In the future, artificial intelligence will play an important role in medicine. In diagnostics, successful tests have already been performed: for example, the computer can learn to categorise images with great accuracy according to whether they show pathological changes or not.

In quantum research, tailor-made electromagnetic fields are needed to precisely control particles. The TU Vienna has shown that machine learning is an excellent tool for this purpose . Tiny particles can be manipulated with electromagnetic fields: You can capture them, hold them, or move them to a specific location.

Exact solutions are often impossible in materials physics. In an international research cooperation involving TU Wien and Saitama University in Japan a technique has now been developed to make unsolvable quantum calculations solvable on certain scales. In physics, one often has to deal with different scales that can be described separately from one another: For the earth's orbit around the sun, it makes absolutely no difference whether an elephant in the zoo walks to the left or to the right.

How do quantum particles share information? A peculiar conjecture about quantum information has been experimentally confirmed at the TU Wien. Some things are related, others are not. Suppose you randomly select a person from a crowd who is significantly taller than the average. In that case, there is a good chance that they will also weigh more than the average.

A Goldilocks material that might be just right: the precious metal palladium could be used to make superconductors that remain superconducting even at relatively high temperatures, show calculations by TU Wien. It is one of the most exciting races in modern physics: How can we produce the best superconductors that remain superconducting even at the highest possible temperatures and ambient pressure? In recent years, a new era of superconductivity has begun with the discovery of nickelates.

The simplest explanation is often the best - this also applies to fundamental science. Researchers from TU Wien and Toho University recently showed that a supposed quantum spin liquid can be described by more conventional physics. For two decades, it was believed that a possible quantum spin liquid was discovered in a synthetically produced material.

Clean drinking water is essential. Therefore, an international research team led by Dominik Eder has now shown how groundwater can be efficiently freed from pollutants such as glyphosate. Contaminated drinking water poses a major threat to our health. However, various pollutants such as pesticides, herbicides, hormones, medicines and other chemical compounds cannot be completely removed from groundwater with the methods currently available.

If one converts CO2 into synthesis gas, a valuable starting material for the chemical industry can be obtained. Researchers at TU Wien show how this works even at room temperature and atmospheric pressure. Thinking of CO2, terms like climate-damaging or waste product probably quickly come to mind. While CO2 has been that for a long time - a pure waste product - more and more processes are being developed with which the greenhouse gas can be converted into valuable raw materials.

Erasing data perfectly and reaching the lowest possible temperature - sound like completely different tasks, but they are closely intertwined. At the Vienna University of Technology, a quantum formulation was found for the third law of thermodynamics . The absolute lowest temperature that is possible at all is -273.15 degrees Celsius.

Erasing data perfectly and reaching the lowest possible temperature - those two things seem to be completely different, but they are closely intertwined. At TU Wien, a quantum formulation has now been found for the third law of thermodynamics. The absolute lowest temperature possible is -273.15 degrees Celsius.

Tiny structures made of gold can be specifically manipulated by ion bombardment at TU Wien (Vienna) - surprisingly, the decisive factor is not the force of the impact. Normally, we have to make a choice in physics: Either we deal with big things - such as a metal plate and its material properties, or with tiny things - such as individual atoms.

Tailor-made laser light fields can be used to slow down the movement of several particles and thus cool them down to extremely low temperatures - as shown by a team from TU Wien. Using lasers to slow down atoms is a technique that has been used for a long time already: If one wants to achieve low-temperature world records in the range of absolute temperature zero, one resorts to laser cooling, in which energy is extracted from the atoms with a suitable laser beam.

Sometimes, chemical reactions do not solely run stationary in one direction, but they show spatio-temporal oscillations. At TU Wien, a transition to chaotic behavior on the nanometer scale has now been observed. Chaotic behavior is typically known from large systems: for example, from weather, from asteroids in space that are simultaneously attracted by several large celestial bodies, or from swinging pendulums that are coupled together.