Research, teaching and public engagement in Physics at UW–Madison
Physics PhD and ECE MS student Justin Edwards has been awarded the prestigious National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship in the category of Physics (including Optics), with a proposal titled “Multispectral imaging in the near infrared for next-generation analog night vision systems”. Justin is advised by ECE Professor and physics affiliate professor Mikhail Kats …
University of Wisconsin–Madison physicists have made one of the highest performance atomic clocks ever, they announced Feb. 16 in the journal Nature. Their instrument, known as an optical lattice atomic clock, can measure differences in time to a precision equivalent to losing just one second every 300 billion years and is the first example of …
In its inaugural round of funding, the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Graduate Education’s (OVCRGE) Research Forward initiative selected 11 projects, including two with physics department faculty involvement. OVCRGE hosts Research Forward to stimulate and support highly innovative and groundbreaking research at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. The initiative is supported by the …
From radio to television to the internet, telecommunications transmissions are simply information carried on light waves and converted to electrical signals. Silicon-based fiber optics are currently the best structures for high-speed, long distance transmissions, but graphene — an all-carbon, ultra-thin and adaptable material — could improve performance even more. In a study published April 16 in …
Most people know mother-of-pearl, an iridescent biomineral also called nacre, from buttons, jewelry, instrument inlays and other decorative flourishes. Scientists, too, have admired and marveled at nacre for decades, not only for its beauty and optical properties but because of its exceptional toughness. “It’s one of the most-studied natural biominerals,” says Pupa Gilbert, a University of …
A group of University of Wisconsin–Madison physicists has identified conditions under which relatively distant atoms communicate with each other in ways that had previously only been seen in atoms closer together — a development that could have applications to quantum computing. The physicists’ findings, published Oct. 14 in the journal Physical Review A, open up new …
UW–Madison physics grad student Aedan Gardill has been illustrating physics concepts with art for years, such as through his Instagram account, where he shares ink drawings. Earlier this year, he applied for a grant from the Madison Arts Commission to create hidden portraits of women in the physical sciences that could only be revealed by using polarized …
When light moves from one material into another, it bends — like how a partially submerged object appears distorted under water when viewed from above. What if, instead of bending, a material could change the light so much that the material was no longer visible at all? In a study published in Physical Review A, …