news

A technical trick has been used to simulate a speed of light of only 2 m/s in the laboratory. This made it possible to reproduce the relativistic Terrell-Penrose effect for the first time. When an object moves extremely fast - close to the speed of light - certain basic assumptions that we take for granted no longer apply.

An international team led by Fabian Garmroudi has succeeded in producing new, efficient thermoelectric materials that could compete with state-of-the-art materials, offering greater stability and lower cost. Thermoelectric materials enable the direct conversion of heat into electrical energy. This makes them particularly attractive for the emerging "Internet of Things", for example for the autonomous energy supply of microsensors and other tiny electronic components.

At TU Wien (Vienna), methods are being developed to extract valuable substances from biomass - and quantum cascade lasers offer some very interesting new possibilities. Much of our waste is far too valuable to simply be incinerated. If it is recycled in a carefully controlled way, not only can thermal energy be generated, but the resulting gas can also be used to produce valuable chemicals - from hydrogen to methane or methanol.

Rain and floods occur on different time scales - hours or days. Now, for the first time, it is possible to explain how climate change affects phenomena on both time scales. Climate change may lead to more precipitation and more intense floods. A new study shows that to understand the details of this relationship, it is important to distinguish between different types of rainfall and flood events - namely, between short-term events that occur on a time scale of hours, and longer-term events that last several days.

Superconducting circuits are being used at TU Wien and ISTA to create new types of quantum systems that are much easier to control and much more tunable than natural quantum systems like atoms. Many objects that we normally deal with in quantum physics are only visible with special microscopes - individual molecules or atoms, for example.

A new microscopy method can identify molecules. However, the question of its resolving power proved to be a difficult puzzle. It has now been solved at TU Wien. When judging the quality of a microscope, the crucial question is: How large are the smallest structures that can just be made visible with it? How close can two objects be brought together before they can no longer be seen as two separate objects, but blur into a single image blob? With conventional light microscopes, this can be calculated using relatively simple formulas.

Breakthrough in materials research: an alloy of several metals has been developed that shows practically no thermal expansion over an extremely large temperature interval. Most metals expand when their temperature rises. The Eiffel Tower, for example, is around 10 to 15 centimetres taller in summer than in winter due to its thermal expansion.

Is there a contradiction between quantum theory and thermodynamics? On the surface, yes - but at TU Wien, researchers have now shown how the two fit together perfectly. It is one of the most important laws of nature that we know: The famous second law of thermodynamics says that the world gets more and more disordered, when random chance is at play.

Nerve stimulation can help with various diseases. However, this only works well if the body's own rhythms are taken into account, says a study by TU Wien (Vienna). It doesn't always have to be medication. Some health problems, from chronic pain and inflammation to neurological diseases, can also be treated by nerve stimulation, for example with the help of electrodes that are attached to the ear and activate the vagus nerve.

A kind of 'umbilical cord' between different quantum states can be found in some materials. Researchers at TU Wien have now shown that this 'umbilical cord' is generic to many materials. It is a basic principle of quantum theory: sometimes certain physical quantities can only assume very specific values; all the values in between are simply not permitted by physics.

Quantum simulators are a completely new tool for research: quantum physics is studied by other kinds of quantum physics. Research teams from Innsbruck and Vienna are developing a new method that will allow this new technology to be reliably verified. Quantum physics is a very diverse field: it describes particle collisions shortly after the Big Bang as well as electrons in solid materials or atoms far out in space.

A research team at the Institute of Materials Chemistry at TU Wien, led by Professor Dominik Eder, has developed a new synthetic approach to create durable, conductive and catalytically active hybrid framework materials for (photo)electrocatalytic water splitting. Porous metal-organic framework catalysts The development of technologies for sustainable energy carriers, such as hydrogen, is essential.

When you place metal nanoparticles on carbon, they become much more active. What was previously only assumed based on experience could now be explained in detail for the first time at TU Wien (Vienna).

In certain materials, electrical charge can only move in very specific directions. Researchers at TU Wien (Vienna) have now shown that this can be explained by magnetic effects. High-temperature superconductivity is one of the great mysteries of modern physics: some materials conduct electrical current without any resistance - but only at very low temperatures.

The emergence of quantum entanglement is one of the fastest processes in nature. Scientists at TU Wien (Vienna) show that using special tricks, this can be investigated on an attosecond scale. Quantum theory describes events that take place on extremely short time scales. In the past, such events were regarded as 'momentary' or 'instantaneous': An electron orbits the nucleus of an atom - in the next moment it is suddenly ripped out by a flash of light.

How long do neutrons live? Different measurement results contradict each other. A possible explanation has now been proposed at TU Wien (Vienna). Neutrons are among the basic building blocks of matter. As long as they are part of a stable atomic nucleus, they can stay there for arbitrary periods of time.

Scientists at the TU Wien and the University of Vienna have uncovered the detailed structure of the aluminum oxide surface, a challenge that has baffled researchers for decades. Aluminum oxide (Al2O3), also known as alumina, corundum, sapphire, or ruby, is one of the best insulators used in a wide range of applications: in electronic components, as a support material for catalysts, or as a chemically resistant ceramic, to name a few.

Atomic clocks have been used for decades - but now, even greater precision has become possible: TU Wien (Vienna) and JILA/NIST are presenting the world's first nuclear clock. For many years, scientists all'around the world have been working towards this goal, now suddenly things are happening very fast: it was only in April that a team led by Prof Thorsten Schumm (TU Wien, Vienna) announced a major success.

How microplastic particles disperse in the ocean depends on microscopic details. Scientists at TU Wien have now succeeded in precisely characterising the motion of these particles. Microplastics are a global problem: they end up in rivers and oceans, they accumulate in living organisms and disrupt entire ecosystems.

In the EU project OntoTrans, coordinated by TU Wien, researchers have designed an application that contributes to the development of better materials. Here, semantic technologies play a central role. There are more than 7,000 languages in the world. However, for two people to be able to communicate with each other, they must speak the same language.