From City College of New York (US) : “CCNY researchers announce photon-phonon breakthrough”

10.8.21

Max Dorfman/Jay Mwamba
p: 212.650.7580
e: jmwamba@ccny.cuny.edu

From City College of New York (US)

Topologically distinct photonic crystals (orange and blue) with a layer of hexagonal boron nitride on top enable coupling of topological light and lattice vibrations to form chiral half-light half-vibration excitations, which can be directionally guided along 1D channels in robust manner. Credit: Filipp Komissarenko and Sriram Guddala.

New research by a City College of New York team has uncovered a novel way to combine two different states of matter. For one of the first times, topological photons—light—has been combined with lattice vibrations also known as phonons to manipulate their propagation in a robust and controllable way.

The study utilized topological photonics-an emergent direction in photonics which leverages fundamental ideas of the mathematical field of topology about conserved quantities—topological invariants—that remain constant when altering parts of a geometric object under continuous deformations. One of the simplest examples of such invariants is number of holes, which, for instance, makes donut and mug equivalent from the topological point of view. The topological properties endow photons with helicity, when photons spin as they propagate, leading to unique and unexpected characteristics, such as robustness to defects and unidirectional propagation along interfaces between topologically distinct materials. Thanks to interactions with vibrations in crystals, these helical photons can then be used to channel infrared light along with vibrations.

The implications of this work are broad, in particular allowing researchers to advance Raman spectroscopy, which is used to determine vibrational modes of molecules. The research also holds promise for vibrational spectroscopy—also known as infrared spectroscopy—which measures the interaction of infrared radiation with matter through absorption, emission, or reflection. This can then be utilized to study and identify and characterize chemical substances.

“We coupled helical photons with lattice vibrations in hexagonal boron nitride, creating a new hybrid matter referred to as phonon-polaritons,” said Alexander Khanikaev, lead author and physicist with affiliation in CCNY’s Grove School of Engineering. “It is half light and half vibrations. Since infrared light and lattice vibrations are associated with heat, we created new channels for propagation of light and heat together. Typically, lattice vibrations are very hard to control, and guiding them around defects and sharp corners was impossible before.”

The new methodology can also implement directional radiative heat transfer, a form of energy transfer during which heat is dissipated through electromagnetic waves.

“We can create channels of arbitrary shape for this form of hybrid light and matter excitations to be guided along within a two-dimensional material we created,” added Dr. Sriram Guddala, postdoctoral researcher in Prof. Khanikaev’s group and the first author of the manuscript. “This method also allows us to switch the direction of propagation of vibrations along these channels, forward or backward, simply by switching polarizations handedness of the incident laser beam. Interestingly, as the phonon-polaritons propagate, the vibrations also rotate along with the electric field. This is an entirely novel way of guiding and rotating lattice vibrations, which also makes them helical.”

The study appears in the journal Science.

See the full article here.

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WE’RE THE ORIGINAL –
AND WE’RE STILL MEETING THE NEED.

Since 1847, The City College of New York (US) has provided a high quality and affordable education to generations of New Yorkers in a wide variety of disciplines. CCNY embraces its role at the forefront of social change.

Located in the heart of New York City, CCNY is home to such important ‘firsts’ as: The first college explicitly founded on the ideal of educating the ‘whole people’, the first documentary film program in the U.S., the first intercollegiate lacrosse game played in the U.S., first student government in the nation, and the longest running Alumni Association in the U.S.

It is ranked #1 by The Chronicle of Higher Education out of 369 selective public colleges in the United States on the overall mobility index. This measure reflects both access and outcomes, representing the likelihood that a student at CCNY can move up two or more income quintiles. In addition, the Center for world University Rankings places CCNY in the top 1.2% of universities worldwide in terms of academic excellence. More than 16,000 students pursue undergraduate and graduate degrees in eight professional schools and divisions, driven by significant funded research, creativity and scholarship. CCNY is as diverse, dynamic and visionary as New York City itself.

Outstanding programs in architecture, engineering, education and the liberal arts and sciences prepare our students for the future, and produce outstanding leaders in every field.Whether they are drawn to the traditional, like philosophy or sociology, or emerging fields like sonic arts or biomedical engineering, our baccalaureate graduates go on to graduate programs at Stanford, Columbia or MIT – or they stay right here in one of our 50 master’s programs or our doctoral programs in engineering, the laboratory sciences, and psychology.

Nowhere else in the city do undergraduates have so many opportunities to conduct research with professors and publish and present their findings.In our science, engineering and social science programs, more than 300 undergrads work alongside senior researchers in funded projects. Leading CUNY in funded research, we house a number of research centers, and soon two new advanced research centers will rise on South Campus.Nearly all of our full-time faculty hold PhDs or – like our architecture faculty, maintain professional practices.Art professors exhibit their work, film professors make films, and music professors perform in venues around the country.

The campus is alive with student activity. City College fields 16 varsity teams that compete in NCAA Division III – and students work out in an equipment rich fitness center and socialize in more than 100 student clubs. And our students come from around the corner and world, representing more than 150 nationalities. City College is an integral part of the civic, urban and artistic energy of New York and inseparable from its history. We are the City that built this city.

From The University of Rochester (US): “‘High risk’ project uses quantum science to unlock new chemical reactions”

From The University of Rochester (US)

October 7, 2021

Peter Iglinski
585.273.4726
peter.iglinski@rochester.edu

Chemistry professor Todd Krauss and his fellow researchers want to use light to facilitate previously impossible chemical reactions. If successful, he says, “it could be a paradigm shift in the field of chemistry.” Photo: J. Adam Fenster/ University of Rochester.

Rochester scientists have secured national funding for a multi-institutional research effort that could alter the basic rules of chemistry.

University of Rochester chemist Todd Krauss will lead a multi-institution effort to transform the field of chemistry, thanks to a $1.8 million dollar grant from The National Science Foundation (US). Chemists have long understood the tools they have available in order to create new molecules, such as changing the reaction temperature or using a catalyst—or doing both. Now, Krauss and his fellow researchers want to use light to facilitate previously impossible chemical reactions—in essence, by turning light into a catalyst.

“This is a high-risk proposal,” says Krauss, a professor of chemistry and of optics at Rochester. “Will we be able to get enough molecules to strongly interact with the light to make a difference? If we do, it could be a paradigm shift in the field of chemistry.”

Quantum principles applied to chemistry

According to the principles of quantum science—which deals with the fundamental nature of atoms and subatomic particles—light is made up of small, discrete packets of energy. Krauss’s project calls for putting molecules in an optical cavity and using those discrete packets to change the energy states of electrons in the molecule. When that’s done, the molecules behave differently, opening the door for new bonding possibilities and ,thus, new chemistry.

Molecules form through chemical bonding—the sharing of orbiting electrons. By changing temperatures or introducing catalysts chemists can manipulate how—or whether—electrons are shared. These interactions follow basic rules. For example, carbon-chlorine bonds are broken more easily than carbon-hydrogen bonds. Here, the team aims to use the application of quantum principles in order to change these basic rules to allow different bonds to break and reform.

Krauss hopes to alter the spatial properties of electrons and as a result change the way molecules bond.

“We can potentially move electrons uphill from one molecule to another—something that has been classically forbidden,” says Krauss. “Most electrons have spherical orbits. If we can move some of those electrons into non-spherical orbits, they’ll behave differently. Doing that would allow us to create new molecules.”

QuEST for better medications, greener energy, new materials

According to Krauss, this work represents a new way of developing chemical reactions—one with many potential benefits to society. “In theory, that could lead to new applications in fuel production, pharmaceuticals, and the manufacturing of plastics,” he says.

The University of Rochester has a long tradition of quantum science with respect to strongly coupling light and atoms—defining the field of quantum optics for decades—dating back to the pioneering work of Leonard Mandel and Emil Wolf more than five decades ago. In QuEST, the team will build on that tradition by exploring how to strongly couple light with molecules in order to manipulate chemical reactions, pushing quantum optics into new and uncharted territory.

Under the terms of the grant, Krauss will direct the NSF Phase I Chemical Innovation Center for Quantum Electrodynamics for Selective Transformations (QuEST). The QuEST research team includes fellow University of Rochester chemistry professors Pengfei Huo and William Jones, as well as optics professor Nick Vamivakas. Joining them on are Jillian Dempsey at The University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill (US), Nicolas Large and Zachary Tonzetich from The University of Texas–San Antonio (US), Teri Odom from Northwestern University (US), and Daniel Weix from The University of Wisconsin–Madison .

“This is a three-year seed grant,” explains Krauss. “After a couple of years, we’ll compete for a Phase II grant—$20 million dollars over four years—to continue the research.”

See the full article here .

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University of Rochester campus

The The University of Rochester (US) is a private research university in Rochester, New York. The university grants undergraduate and graduate degrees, including doctoral and professional degrees.

The University of Rochester (US) enrolls approximately 6,800 undergraduates and 5,000 graduate students. Its 158 buildings house over 200 academic majors. According to the National Science Foundation (US), Rochester spent $370 million on research and development in 2018, ranking it 68th in the nation. The university is the 7th largest employer in the Finger lakes region of New York.

The College of Arts, Sciences, and Engineering is home to departments and divisions of note. The Institute of Optics was founded in 1929 through a grant from Eastman Kodak and Bausch and Lomb as the first educational program in the US devoted exclusively to optics and awards approximately half of all optics degrees nationwide and is widely regarded as the premier optics program in the nation and among the best in the world.

The Departments of Political Science and Economics have made a significant and consistent impact on positivist social science since the 1960s and historically rank in the top 5 in their fields. The Department of Chemistry is noted for its contributions to synthetic organic chemistry, including the first lab based synthesis of morphine. The Rossell Hope Robbins Library serves as the university’s resource for Old and Middle English texts and expertise. The university is also home to Rochester’s Laboratory for Laser Energetics, a Department of Energy (US) supported national laboratory.

University of Rochester(US) Laboratory for Laser Energetics.

The University of Rochester’s Eastman School of Music (US) ranks first among undergraduate music schools in the U.S. The Sibley Music Library at Eastman is the largest academic music library in North America and holds the third largest collection in the United States.

In its history university alumni and faculty have earned 13 Nobel Prizes; 13 Pulitzer Prizes; 45 Grammy Awards; 20 Guggenheim Awards; 5 National Academy of Sciences; 4 National Academy of Engineering; 3 Rhodes Scholarships; 3 National Academy of Inventors; and 1 National Academy of Inventors Hall of Fame.

History

Early history

The University of Rochester traces its origins to The First Baptist Church of Hamilton (New York) which was founded in 1796. The church established the Baptist Education Society of the State of New York later renamed the Hamilton Literary and Theological Institution in 1817. This institution gave birth to both Colgate University(US) and the University of Rochester. Its function was to train clergy in the Baptist tradition. When it aspired to grant higher degrees it created a collegiate division separate from the theological division.

The collegiate division was granted a charter by the State of New York in 1846 after which its name was changed to Madison University. John Wilder and the Baptist Education Society urged that the new university be moved to Rochester, New York. However, legal action prevented the move. In response, dissenting faculty, students, and trustees defected and departed for Rochester, where they sought a new charter for a new university.

Madison University was eventually renamed as Colgate University (US).

Founding

Asahel C. Kendrick- professor of Greek- was among the faculty that departed Madison University for Rochester. Kendrick served as acting president while a national search was conducted. He reprised this role until 1853 when Martin Brewer Anderson of the Newton Theological Seminary in Massachusetts was selected to fill the inaugural posting.

The University of Rochester’s new charter was awarded by the Regents of the State of New York on January 31, 1850. The charter stipulated that the university have $100,000 in endowment within five years upon which the charter would be reaffirmed. An initial gift of $10,000 was pledged by John Wilder which helped catalyze significant gifts from individuals and institutions.

Classes began that November with approximately 60 students enrolled including 28 transfers from Madison. From 1850 to 1862 the university was housed in the old United States Hotel in downtown Rochester on Buffalo Street near Elizabeth Street- today West Main Street near the I-490 overpass. On a February 1851 visit Ralph Waldo Emerson said of the university:

“They had bought a hotel, once a railroad terminus depot, for $8,500, turned the dining room into a chapel by putting up a pulpit on one side, made the barroom into a Pythologian Society’s Hall, & the chambers into Recitation rooms, Libraries, & professors’ apartments, all for $700 a year. They had brought an omnibus load of professors down from Madison bag and baggage… called in a painter and sent him up the ladder to paint the title “University of Rochester” on the wall, and they had runners on the road to catch students. And they are confident of graduating a class of ten by the time green peas are ripe.”

For the next 10 years the college expanded its scope and secured its future through an expanding endowment; student body; and faculty. In parallel a gift of 8 acres of farmland from local businessman and Congressman Azariah Boody secured the first campus of the university upon which Anderson Hall was constructed and dedicated in 1862. Over the next sixty years this Prince Street Campus grew by a further 17 acres and was developed to include fraternities houses; dormitories; and academic buildings including Anderson Hall; Sibley Library; Eastman and Carnegie Laboratories the Memorial Art Gallery and Cutler Union.

Twentieth century

Coeducation

The first female students were admitted in 1900- the result of an effort led by Susan B. Anthony and Helen Barrett Montgomery. During the 1890s a number of women took classes and labs at the university as “visitors” but were not officially enrolled nor were their records included in the college register. President David Jayne Hill allowed the first woman- Helen E. Wilkinson- to enroll as a normal student although she was not allowed to matriculate or to pursue a degree. Thirty-three women enrolled among the first class in 1900 and Ella S. Wilcoxen was the first to receive a degree in 1901. The first female member of the faculty was Elizabeth Denio who retired as Professor Emeritus in 1917. Male students moved to River Campus upon its completion in 1930 while the female students remained on the Prince Street campus until 1955.

Expansion

Major growth occurred under the leadership of Benjamin Rush Rhees over his 1900-1935 tenure. During this period George Eastman became a major donor giving more than $50 million to the university during his life. Under the patronage of Eastman the Eastman School of Music (US) was created in 1921. In 1925 at the behest of the General Education Board and with significant support for John D. Rockefeller George Eastman and Henry A. Strong’s family medical and dental schools were created. The university award its first Ph.D that same year.

During World War II University of Rochester was one of 131 colleges and universities nationally that took part in the V-12 Navy College Training Program which offered students a path to a Navy commission. In 1942, the university was invited to join the Association of American Universities(US) as an affiliate member and it was made a full member by 1944. Between 1946 and 1947 in infamous uranium experiments researchers at the university injected uranium-234 and uranium-235 into six people to study how much uranium their kidneys could tolerate before becoming damaged.

In 1955 the separate colleges for men and women were merged into The College on the River Campus. In 1958 three new schools were created in engineering; business administration and education. The Graduate School of Management was named after William E. Simon- former Secretary of the Treasury in 1986. He committed significant funds to the school because of his belief in the school’s free market philosophy and grounding in economic analysis.

Financial decline and name change controversy

Following the princely gifts given throughout his life George Eastman left the entirety of his estate to the university after his death by suicide. The total of these gifts surpassed $100 million before inflation and as such Rochester enjoyed a privileged position amongst the most well endowed universities. During the expansion years between 1936 and 1976 the University of Rochester’s financial position ranked third, near Harvard University’s(US) endowment and the University of Texas (US) System’s Permanent University Fund. Due to a decline in the value of large investments and a lack of portfolio diversity the university’s place dropped to the top 25 by the end of the 1980s. At the same time the preeminence of the city of Rochester’s major employers began to decline.

In response the University commissioned a study to determine if the name of the institution should be changed to “Eastman University” or “Eastman Rochester University”. The study concluded a name change could be beneficial because the use of a place name in the title led respondents to incorrectly believe it was a public university, and because the name “Rochester” connoted a “cold and distant outpost.” Reports of the latter conclusion led to controversy and criticism in the Rochester community. Ultimately, the name “University of Rochester” was retained.

Renaissance Plan

In 1995 University of Rochester president Thomas H. Jackson announced the launch of a “Renaissance Plan” for The College that reduced enrollment from 4,500 to 3,600 creating a more selective admissions process. The plan also revised the undergraduate curriculum significantly creating the current system with only one required course and only a few distribution requirements known as clusters. Part of this plan called for the end of graduate doctoral studies in chemical engineering; comparative literature; linguistics; and mathematics the last of which was met by national outcry. The plan was largely scrapped and mathematics exists as a graduate course of study to this day.

Twenty-first century

Meliora Challenge

Shortly after taking office university president Joel Seligman commenced the private phase of the “Meliora Challenge”- a $1.2 billion capital campaign- in 2005. The campaign reached its goal in 2015- a year before the campaign was slated to conclude. In 2016, the university announced the Meliora Challenge had exceeded its goal and surpassed $1.36 billion. These funds were allocated to support over 100 new endowed faculty positions and nearly 400 new scholarships.

The Mangelsdorf Years

On December 17, 2018 the University of Rochester announced that Sarah C. Mangelsdorf would succeed Richard Feldman as President of the University. Her term started in July 2019 with a formal inauguration following in October during Meliora Weekend. Mangelsdorf is the first woman to serve as President of the University and the first person with a degree in psychology to be appointed to Rochester’s highest office.

In 2019 students from China mobilized by the Chinese Students and Scholars Association (CSSA) defaced murals in the University’s access tunnels which had expressed support for the 2019 Hong Kong Protests, condemned the oppression of the Uighurs, and advocated for Taiwanese independence. The act was widely seen as a continuation of overseas censorship of Chinese issues. In response a large group of students recreated the original murals. There have also been calls for Chinese government run CSSA to be banned from campus.

Research

Rochester is a member of the Association of American Universities (US) and is classified among “R1: Doctoral Universities – Very High Research Activity”.

Rochester had a research expenditure of $370 million in 2018.

In 2008 Rochester ranked 44th nationally in research spending but this ranking has declined gradually to 68 in 2018.

Some of the major research centers include the Laboratory for Laser Energetics, a laser-based nuclear fusion facility, and the extensive research facilities at the University of Rochester Medical Center.

Recently the university has also engaged in a series of new initiatives to expand its programs in biomedical engineering and optics including the construction of the new $37 million Robert B. Goergen Hall for Biomedical Engineering and Optics on the River Campus.

Other new research initiatives include a cancer stem cell program and a Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute. UR also has the ninth highest technology revenue among U.S. higher education institutions with $46 million being paid for commercial rights to university technology and research in 2009. Notable patents include Zoloft and Gardasil. WeBWorK, a web-based system for checking homework and providing immediate feedback for students was developed by University of Rochester professors Gage and Pizer. The system is now in use at over 800 universities and colleges as well as several secondary and primary schools. Rochester scientists work in diverse areas. For example, physicists developed a technique for etching metal surfaces such as platinum; titanium; and brass with powerful lasers enabling self-cleaning surfaces that repel water droplets and will not rust if tilted at a 4 degree angle; and medical researchers are exploring how brains rid themselves of toxic waste during sleep.

From ARC Centres of Excellence (AU) : “Ultra-short or infinitely long- it all looks the same”

From ARC Centres of Excellence (AU)

10.6.21

Prof Jeff Davis
Swinburne University of Technology (AU)
jdavis@swin.edu.au

Dr Stuart Earl
Swinburne University of Technology(AU)
searl@swin.edu.au

Nonlinear processes allow researchers to control and manipulate light via interactions with matter. Here, sum-frequency generation mixes two colours of light in a crystal to produce a new, third colour. In this new study, FLEET uses nonlinear spectroscopy to control the electronic bandstructure of a single atomic layer.

-Driven states in WS2 monolayers unable to discriminate between ultrashort pulses of light and an infinite, continuous drive.
-Ultrashort pulses of light can adiabatically drive transitions to new Floquet phases of matter.

Ultrashort pulses of light are proven indistinguishable from continuous illumination, in terms of controlling the electronic states of atomically-thin material tungsten disulfide (WS2).

A new, Swinburne University of Technology (AU)-led study proves that ultrashort pulses of light can be used to drive transitions to new phases of matter, aiding the search for future Floquet-based, low-energy electronics.

There is significant interest in transiently controlling the band-structure of a monolayer semiconductor by using ultra-short pulses of light to create and control exotic new phases of matter.

The resulting temporary states known as Floquet-Bloch states are interesting from a pure research standpoint as well as for a proposed new class of transistor based on Floquet topological insulators (FTIs).

In an important finding, the ultra-short pulses of light necessary for detecting the formation of Floquet states were shown to be as effective in triggering the state as continuous illumination, an important question that, until now, had been largely ignored.

A continuous wave or ultrashort-pulses: the problem with time

Floquet physics, which has been used to predict how an insulator can be transformed into an FTI, is predicated on a purely sinusoidal field, ie continuous, monochromatic (single wavelength) illumination that has no beginning or end.

To observe this phase transition, however, only ultrashort pulses offer sufficient peak intensities to produce a detectable effect. And there’s the rub.

Turning even the purest light source on or off introduces a wide range of additional frequencies to the light’s spectrum; the more abrupt the switching, the more broadband the spectrum. As a result, ultrashort pulses like those used here don’t conform to the assumptions upon which Floquet physics is based.

“Ultrashort pulses are about as far as you can possibly get from a monochromatic wave,” says Dr Stuart Earl at Swinburne University of Technology (Australia).

“However, we’ve now shown that even with pulses shorter than 15 optical cycles (34 femtoseconds, or 34 millionths of a billionth of a second), that just doesn’t matter.”

Pump-probe spectroscopy of atomic monolayer elicits an instantaneous response

Corresponding author Prof Jeff Davis (Swinburne University of Technology) leads Swinburne’s ultrafast spectroscopy lab.

Dr Earl, with collaborators from The Australian National University (AU) and the ARC Centre for Future Low-Energy Electronic Technologies (FLEET), subjected an atomic monolayer of tungsten-disulfide (WS2) to light pulses of varying length but the same total energy, altering the peak intensity in a controlled manner.

WS2 is a transition metal dichalcogenide (TMD), a family of materials investigated for use in future ‘beyond CMOS’ electronics.

The team used pump-probe spectroscopy to observe a transient shift in the energy of the A exciton of WS2 due to the optical Stark effect (the simplest realisation of Floquet physics). Thanks to their use of a sub-bandgap pump pulse, the signal they measured, which persisted only for as long as the pulse itself, was due to interactions between equilibrium and photon-dressed virtual states within the sample.

“It might sound odd that we can harness virtual states to manipulate a real transition” says Dr Earl. “But because we used a sub-bandgap pump pulse, no real states were populated.”

“The WS2 responded instantaneously, but more significantly, its response depended linearly on the instantaneous intensity of the pulse, just as if we’d turned on a monochromatic field infinitely slowly, that is, adiabatically” explains Professor Jeff Davis, also at Swinburne University of Technology. “This was an exciting finding for our team. Despite the pulses being extremely short, the states of the system remained coherent”

An adiabatic perturbation is one that is introduced extremely slowly, so that the states of the system have time to adapt, a crucial requirement for FTIs. While ultrashort pulses shouldn’t be compatible with this requirement, this result provides clear evidence that for these atomic monolayers, they do. This now enables the team to attribute any evidence of non-adiabatic behaviour to the sample, rather than to their experiment.

These findings now enable the FLEET team to explore Floquet-Bloch states in these materials with an above-bandgap pulse, which, theoretically, should drive the material into the exotic phase known as a Floquet topological insulator. Understanding this process should then help researchers to incorporate these materials into a new generation of low-energy, high-bandwidth, and potentially ultrafast, transistors.

Systems exhibiting dissipationless transport when driven out of equilibrium are studied within FLEET’s Research theme 3, seeking new, ultra-low energy electronics to address the rising, unsustainable energy consumed by computation (already 8% of global electricity, and doubling every decade).
The study

The study was published in Physics Review B in August 2021. (DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevB.104.L060303). The study was funded by The Australian Research Council-ARC Centre of Excellence (AU).

See the full article here .

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The objectives for the ARC Centres of Excellence (AU) are to to:

undertake highly innovative and potentially transformational research that aims to achieve international standing in the fields of research envisaged and leads to a significant advancement of capabilities and knowledge
link existing Australian research strengths and build critical mass with new capacity for interdisciplinary, collaborative approaches to address the most challenging and significant research problems
develope relationships and build new networks with major national and international centres and research programs to help strengthen research, achieve global competitiveness and gain recognition for Australian research
build Australia’s human capacity in a range of research areas by attracting and retaining, from within Australia and abroad, researchers of high international standing as well as the most promising research students
provide high-quality postgraduate and postdoctoral training environments for the next generation of researchers
offer Australian researchers opportunities to work on large-scale problems over long periods of time
establish Centres that have an impact on the wider community through interaction with higher education institutes, governments, industry and the private and non-profit sector.

ARC funds research and researchers under the National Competitive Grants Program (NCGP), and also administers Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA), Australia’s national research evaluation framework. ARC Centres of Excellence, funded for a limited period, are collaborations established among Australian and international universities and other institutions to support research in a variety of fields.

Since 2011, ARC has awarded the annual Kathleen Fitzpatrick Australian Laureate Fellowship and the Georgina Sweet Australian Laureate Fellowship, which are research fellowships for female Australian and international researchers, intended to support innovative research programs and mentor early career researchers.

The Australian Research Council was established as an independent body under the Australian Research Council Act 2001.

As of 2021 the agency is administered by the Department of Education, Skills and Employment, headed by the Minister for Education and Youth.

The ARC’s mission is to deliver policy and programs that advance Australian research and innovation globally and benefit the community. It supports fundamental and applied research and research training through national competition across all disciplines except clinical and other medical and dental research, for which the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) is primarily responsible. ARC is the primary source of advice to the government on investment in the national research effort.

Excellence in Research for Australia

ARC administers Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA), Australia’s national research evaluation framework. ERA identifies and promotes excellence across the full spectrum of research activity in higher education institutions.

ERA is a comprehensive quality evaluation of all research produced in Australian universities against national and international benchmarks. The ratings are determined and moderated by committees of distinguished researchers, drawn from Australia and overseas. The unit of evaluation is broadly defined as the field of research (FoR) within an institution based on the Australia and New Zealand Standard Classification (ANZSRC).

ERA is based on expert review informed by a range of indicators. The indicators used in ERA include a range of metrics, such as citation profiles which are common to disciplines in the sciences, and peer review of a sample of research outputs, which is more common in the humanities and social sciences.

A set of discipline-specific indicators has been developed in close consultation with the research community. This approach ensures that the indicators used are both appropriate and necessary, which minimises the resourcing burden of ERA for government and universities, and ensures that ERA results are robust and broadly accepted.

The first full round of ERA occurred in 2010 and the results were published in early 2011. This was the first time a nationwide stock take of discipline strengths and areas for development had ever been conducted in Australia. There have been two subsequent rounds of ERA in 2012 and 2015.

Centres of excellence

ARC Centres of Excellence are “prestigious foci of expertise through which high-quality researchers maintain and develop Australia’s international standing in research areas of national priority”. Funded by the ARC for a limited period (often seven years), collaborations are established among Australian and international universities, research organisations, governments and businesses, to support research in a number of fields. Recent funding rounds have occurred in 2011, 2014, 2017 and 2020.[9]

Past ARC Centres of Excellence include:

The Centre for Cross-Cultural Research (CCR) at the Australian National University (AU), cited as an “ARC Special Research Centre focussing on scholarly and public understandings of cross-cultural relations and histories, particularly but not exclusively in Australia and in the immediate region”,[11] existed from 1997/8 to around 2006/7. Anthropologist Nicholas Thomas was its inaugural director.
ARC Centre for Complex Systems (ACCS), 2004–2009.
ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation (CCI), 2005–2013.
ARC Centre of Excellence for All-Sky Astrophysics (CAASTRO), 2011–2018.

Continuing Centres include:

ARC Centre of Australian Biodiversity and Heritage (CABAH), 2017–
ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions (CHE), 2011–
ARC Centre of Excellence in Population Ageing Research (CEPAR), 2011–
ARC Centre of Excellence in Future Low-Energy Electronics Technologies (FLEET), 2017–

From University of Rochester (US): “New technique speeds measurement of ultrafast pulses”

From University of Rochester (US)

9.24.21

Comparison of single-pixel imaging, at left, and time-domain single-pixel imaging (TSPI) at right. In a typical single-pixel imaging configuration the photodiode detector has only one pixel and hence provides no spatial resolution. In TPSI, the photodiode, which lacks the temporal bandwidth to resolve ultrafast signals by itself, works as the “single-pixel” detector in the time domain and is used in conjunction with a programmable temporal fan-out gate based on a digital micromirror device. (Illustration by Jiapeng Zhao.)

Schematics of the experimental setup showing a temporal fan out (TFO) gate represented by the yellow dashed box, which includes a digital micromirror device. The propagation direction of prepared input ultrafast pulse, originating in blue dashed box, is shown in pink. Dark red lines represent the corresponding pulse front. (Illustration by Jiapeng Zhao.)

Rochester researchers next will aim for a combination of spatial, temporal imaging.

When we look at an object with our eyes, or with a camera, we can automatically gather enough pixels of light at visible wavelengths to have a clear image of what we see.

However, to visualize a quantum object or phenomenon where the illumination is weak, or emanating from nonvisible infrared or far infrared wavelengths, scientists need far more sensitive tools. For example, they have developed single-pixel imaging in the spatial domain as a way to pack and spatially structure as many photons as possible onto a single pixel detector and then create an image using computational algorithms.

Similarly, in the time domain, when an unknown ultrafast signal is either weak, or in the infrared or far infrared wavelengths, the ability of single-pixel imaging to visualize it is reduced. Based on the spatio-temporal duality of light pulses, University of Rochester researchers have developed a time-domain single-pixel imaging technique, described in Optica, that solves this problem, detecting 5 femtojoule ultrafast light pulses with a temporal sampling size down to 16 femtoseconds. This time-domain analogy of the single-pixel imaging shows similar advantages to its spatial counterparts: a good measurement efficiency, a high sensitivity, robustness against temporal distortions and the compatibility at multiple wavelengths.

Lead author Jiapeng Zhao, a PhD student in optics at the University of Rochester, says possible applications include a highly accurate spectrographic tool, demonstrated to achieve 97.5 percent accuracy in identifying samples using a convolutional neural network with this technique.

The technique can also be combined with single-pixel imaging to create a computational hyperspectral imaging system, says Zhao, who works in the Rochester research group of Robert Boyd, professor of optics. The system can greatly speed up the detection and analysis of images at broad frequency bands. This could be especially useful for medical applications, where detection of nonvisible light emanating from human tissue at different wavelengths can indicate disorders such as high blood pressure.

“By coupling our technique with single pixel imaging in the spatial domain, we can have good hyperspectral image within a few seconds. That’s much faster than what people have done before,” Zhao says.

Other coauthors include Boyd and Xi-Cheng Zhang at Rochester, Jianming Dai at Tianjin University[天津大學](CN), and Boris Braverman at The University of Ottawa (CA).

This project was supported with funding from the Office of Naval Research, the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the National Key Research and Development Program of China.

See the full article here .

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University of Rochester campus

The University of Rochester (US) is a private research university in Rochester, New York. The university grants undergraduate and graduate degrees, including doctoral and professional degrees.

The University of Rochester (US) enrolls approximately 6,800 undergraduates and 5,000 graduate students. Its 158 buildings house over 200 academic majors. According to the National Science Foundation (US), Rochester spent $370 million on research and development in 2018, ranking it 68th in the nation. The university is the 7th largest employer in the Finger lakes region of New York.

The College of Arts, Sciences, and Engineering is home to departments and divisions of note. The Institute of Optics was founded in 1929 through a grant from Eastman Kodak and Bausch and Lomb as the first educational program in the US devoted exclusively to optics and awards approximately half of all optics degrees nationwide and is widely regarded as the premier optics program in the nation and among the best in the world. The Departments of Political Science and Economics have made a significant and consistent impact on positivist social science since the 1960s and historically rank in the top 5 in their fields. The Department of Chemistry is noted for its contributions to synthetic organic chemistry, including the first lab based synthesis of morphine. The Rossell Hope Robbins Library serves as the university’s resource for Old and Middle English texts and expertise. The university is also home to Rochester’s Laboratory for Laser Energetics, a Department of Energy (US) supported national laboratory.

University of Rochester(US) Laboratory for Laser Energetics.

The University of Rochester’s Eastman School of Music (US) ranks first among undergraduate music schools in the U.S. The Sibley Music Library at Eastman is the largest academic music library in North America and holds the third largest collection in the United States.

In its history university alumni and faculty have earned 13 Nobel Prizes; 13 Pulitzer Prizes; 45 Grammy Awards; 20 Guggenheim Awards; 5 National Academy of Sciences; 4 National Academy of Engineering; 3 Rhodes Scholarships; 3 National Academy of Inventors; and 1 National Academy of Inventors Hall of Fame.

History

Early history

The University of Rochester traces its origins to The First Baptist Church of Hamilton (New York) which was founded in 1796. The church established the Baptist Education Society of the State of New York later renamed the Hamilton Literary and Theological Institution in 1817. This institution gave birth to both Colgate University(US) and the University of Rochester. Its function was to train clergy in the Baptist tradition. When it aspired to grant higher degrees it created a collegiate division separate from the theological division.

The collegiate division was granted a charter by the State of New York in 1846 after which its name was changed to Madison University. John Wilder and the Baptist Education Society urged that the new university be moved to Rochester, New York. However, legal action prevented the move. In response, dissenting faculty, students, and trustees defected and departed for Rochester, where they sought a new charter for a new university.

Madison University was eventually renamed as Colgate University (US).

Founding

Asahel C. Kendrick- professor of Greek- was among the faculty that departed Madison University for Rochester. Kendrick served as acting president while a national search was conducted. He reprised this role until 1853 when Martin Brewer Anderson of the Newton Theological Seminary in Massachusetts was selected to fill the inaugural posting.

The University of Rochester’s new charter was awarded by the Regents of the State of New York on January 31, 1850. The charter stipulated that the university have $100,000 in endowment within five years upon which the charter would be reaffirmed. An initial gift of $10,000 was pledged by John Wilder which helped catalyze significant gifts from individuals and institutions.

Classes began that November with approximately 60 students enrolled including 28 transfers from Madison. From 1850 to 1862 the university was housed in the old United States Hotel in downtown Rochester on Buffalo Street near Elizabeth Street- today West Main Street near the I-490 overpass. On a February 1851 visit Ralph Waldo Emerson said of the university:

“They had bought a hotel, once a railroad terminus depot, for $8,500, turned the dining room into a chapel by putting up a pulpit on one side, made the barroom into a Pythologian Society’s Hall, & the chambers into Recitation rooms, Libraries, & professors’ apartments, all for $700 a year. They had brought an omnibus load of professors down from Madison bag and baggage… called in a painter and sent him up the ladder to paint the title “University of Rochester” on the wall, and they had runners on the road to catch students. And they are confident of graduating a class of ten by the time green peas are ripe.

For the next 10 years the college expanded its scope and secured its future through an expanding endowment; student body; and faculty. In parallel a gift of 8 acres of farmland from local businessman and Congressman Azariah Boody secured the first campus of the university upon which Anderson Hall was constructed and dedicated in 1862. Over the next sixty years this Prince Street Campus grew by a further 17 acres and was developed to include fraternities houses; dormitories; and academic buildings including Anderson Hall; Sibley Library; Eastman and Carnegie Laboratories the Memorial Art Gallery and Cutler Union.

Twentieth century

Coeducation

The first female students were admitted in 1900- the result of an effort led by Susan B. Anthony and Helen Barrett Montgomery. During the 1890s a number of women took classes and labs at the university as “visitors” but were not officially enrolled nor were their records included in the college register. President David Jayne Hill allowed the first woman- Helen E. Wilkinson- to enroll as a normal student although she was not allowed to matriculate or to pursue a degree. Thirty-three women enrolled among the first class in 1900 and Ella S. Wilcoxen was the first to receive a degree in 1901. The first female member of the faculty was Elizabeth Denio who retired as Professor Emeritus in 1917. Male students moved to River Campus upon its completion in 1930 while the female students remained on the Prince Street campus until 1955.

Expansion

Major growth occurred under the leadership of Benjamin Rush Rhees over his 1900-1935 tenure. During this period George Eastman became a major donor giving more than $50 million to the university during his life. Under the patronage of Eastman the Eastman School of Music (US) was created in 1921. In 1925 at the behest of the General Education Board and with significant support for John D. Rockefeller George Eastman and Henry A. Strong’s family medical and dental schools were created. The university award its first Ph.D that same year.

During World War II Rochester was one of 131 colleges and universities nationally that took part in the V-12 Navy College Training Program which offered students a path to a Navy commission. In 1942, the university was invited to join the Association of American Universities(US) as an affiliate member and it was made a full member by 1944. Between 1946 and 1947 in infamous uranium experiments researchers at the university injected uranium-234 and uranium-235 into six people to study how much uranium their kidneys could tolerate before becoming damaged.

In 1955 the separate colleges for men and women were merged into The College on the River Campus. In 1958 three new schools were created in engineering; business administration and education. The Graduate School of Management was named after William E. Simon- former Secretary of the Treasury in 1986. He committed significant funds to the school because of his belief in the school’s free market philosophy and grounding in economic analysis.

Financial decline and name change controversy

Following the princely gifts given throughout his life George Eastman left the entirety of his estate to the university after his death by suicide. The total of these gifts surpassed $100 million before inflation and as such Rochester enjoyed a privileged position amongst the most well endowed universities. During the expansion years between 1936 and 1976 the University of Rochester’s financial position ranked third, near Harvard University’s(US) endowment and the University of Texas (US) System’s Permanent University Fund. Due to a decline in the value of large investments and a lack of portfolio diversity the university’s place dropped to the top 25 by the end of the 1980s. At the same time the preeminence of the city of Rochester’s major employers began to decline.

In response the University commissioned a study to determine if the name of the institution should be changed to “Eastman University” or “Eastman Rochester University”. The study concluded a name change could be beneficial because the use of a place name in the title led respondents to incorrectly believe it was a public university, and because the name “Rochester” connoted a “cold and distant outpost.” Reports of the latter conclusion led to controversy and criticism in the Rochester community. Ultimately, the name “University of Rochester” was retained.

Renaissance Plan

In 1995 university president Thomas H. Jackson announced the launch of a “Renaissance Plan” for The College that reduced enrollment from 4,500 to 3,600 creating a more selective admissions process. The plan also revised the undergraduate curriculum significantly creating the current system with only one required course and only a few distribution requirements known as clusters. Part of this plan called for the end of graduate doctoral studies in chemical engineering; comparative literature; linguistics; and mathematics the last of which was met by national outcry. The plan was largely scrapped and mathematics exists as a graduate course of study to this day.

Twenty-first century

Meliora Challenge

Shortly after taking office university president Joel Seligman commenced the private phase of the “Meliora Challenge”- a $1.2 billion capital campaign- in 2005. The campaign reached its goal in 2015- a year before the campaign was slated to conclude. In 2016, the university announced the Meliora Challenge had exceeded its goal and surpassed $1.36 billion. These funds were allocated to support over 100 new endowed faculty positions and nearly 400 new scholarships.

The Mangelsdorf Years

On December 17, 2018 the University of Rochester announced that Sarah C. Mangelsdorf would succeed Richard Feldman as President of the University. Her term started in July 2019 with a formal inauguration following in October during Meliora Weekend. Mangelsdorf is the first woman to serve as President of the University and the first person with a degree in psychology to be appointed to Rochester’s highest office.

In 2019 students from China mobilized by the Chinese Students and Scholars Association (CSSA) defaced murals in the University’s access tunnels which had expressed support for the 2019 Hong Kong Protests, condemned the oppression of the Uighurs, and advocated for Taiwanese independence. The act was widely seen as a continuation of overseas censorship of Chinese issues. In response a large group of students recreated the original murals. There have also been calls for Chinese government run CSSA to be banned from campus.

Research

Rochester is a member of the Association of American Universities (US) and is classified among “R1: Doctoral Universities – Very High Research Activity”. Rochester had a research expenditure of $370 million in 2018. In 2008 Rochester ranked 44th nationally in research spending but this ranking has declined gradually to 68 in 2018. Some of the major research centers include the Laboratory for Laser Energetics, a laser-based nuclear fusion facility, and the extensive research facilities at the University of Rochester Medical Center. Recently the university has also engaged in a series of new initiatives to expand its programs in biomedical engineering and optics including the construction of the new $37 million Robert B. Goergen Hall for Biomedical Engineering and Optics on the River Campus. Other new research initiatives include a cancer stem cell program and a Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute. UR also has the ninth highest technology revenue among U.S. higher education institutions with $46 million being paid for commercial rights to university technology and research in 2009. Notable patents include Zoloft and Gardasil. WeBWorK, a web-based system for checking homework and providing immediate feedback for students was developed by University of Rochester professors Gage and Pizer. The system is now in use at over 800 universities and colleges as well as several secondary and primary schools. Rochester scientists work in diverse areas. For example, physicists developed a technique for etching metal surfaces such as platinum; titanium; and brass with powerful lasers enabling self-cleaning surfaces that repel water droplets and will not rust if tilted at a 4 degree angle; and medical researchers are exploring how brains rid themselves of toxic waste during sleep.

From University of the Witwatersrand (SA): “Are you quantum or not? Wits PhD student cracks the high-dimensional quantum code”

From University of the Witwatersrand (SA)

31 August 2021

A new and fast tool for quantum computing and communication.

Isaac Nape, an emerging South African talent in the study of quantum optics, is part of a crack team of Wits physicists who led an international study that revealed the hidden structures of quantum entangled states. The study was published in the renowned scientific journal Nature Communications on Friday, 27 August 2021.

Nape is pursuing his PhD at Wits University and focuses on harnessing structured patterns of light for high dimensional information encoding and decoding for use in quantum communication.

Earlier this year he scooped up two awards at the South African Institute of Physics (SAIP) conference to add to his growing collection of accolades in the field of optics and photonics. He won the award for ‘Best PhD oral presentation in applied physics’, and jointly won the award for ‘Best PhD oral presentation in photonics’.

In May, he was also awarded the prestigious 2021 Optics and Photonics Education Scholarship from the SPIE – the international society for optics and photonics (US) (EU), for his potential contributions to the field of optics, photonics or related field.

Faster and more secure computing

Now Nape and his colleagues at Wits, together with collaborators from Scotland and Taiwan offer a new and fast tool for quantum computing and communication. “Quantum states that are entangled in many dimensions are key to our emerging quantum technologies, where more dimensions mean a higher quantum bandwidth (faster) and better resilience to noise (security), crucial for both fast and secure communication and speed up in error-free quantum computing.

“What we have done here is to invent a new approach to probing these ‘high-dimensional’ quantum states, reducing the measurement time from decades to minutes,” Nape explains.

Nape worked with Distinguished Professor Andrew Forbes, lead investigator on this study and Director of the Structured Light Laboratory in the School of Physics at Wits, as well as postdoctoral fellow Dr Valeria Rodriguez-Fajardo, visiting Taiwanese researcher Dr Hasiao-Chih Huang, and Dr Jonathan Leach and Dr Feng Zhu from Heriot-Watt University Edinburgh (SCT).

Are you quantum or not?

In their paper the team outlined a new approach to quantum measurement, testing it on a 100 dimensional quantum entangled state.

With traditional approaches, the time of measurement increases unfavourably with dimension, so that to unravel a 100 dimensional state by a full ‘quantum state tomography’ would take decades. Instead, the team showed that the salient information of the quantum system – how many dimensions are entangled and to what level of purity? – could be deduced in just minutes. The new approach requires only simple ‘projections’ that could easily be done in most laboratories with conventional tools. Using light as an example, the team using an all-digital approach to perform the measurements.

The problem, explains Nape, is that while high-dimensional states are easily made, particularly with entangled particles of light (photons) they are not easy to measure – our toolbox for measuring and controlling them is almost empty.

You can think of a high-dimensional quantum state like faces of a dice. A conventional dice has 6 faces, numbered 1 through 6, for a six-dimensional alphabet that can be used for computing, or for transferring information in communication. To make a ‘high-dimensional dice’ means a dice with many more faces: 100 dimensions equals 100 faces – a rather complicated polygon.

“In our everyday world it would be easy to count the faces to know what sort of resource we had available to us, but not so in the quantum world. In the quantum world, you can never see the whole dice, so counting the faces is very difficult. The way we get around this is to do a tomography, as they do in the medical world, building up a picture from many, many slices of the object,” explains Nape.

But the information in quantum objects can be enormous, so the time for this process is prohibitive. A faster approach is a ‘Bell measurement’- a famous test to tell if what you have in front of you is entangled like asking it “are you quantum or not?”. But while this confirms quantum correlations of the dice, it doesn’t say much about the number of faces it has.

Chance discovery

“Our work circumvented the problem by a chance discovery, that there is a set of measurements that is not a tomography and not a Bell measurement, but that holds important information of both,” says Nape. “In technical parlance, we blended these two measurement approaches to do multiple projections that look like a tomography but measuring the vizibilities of the outcome, as if they were Bell measurements. This revealed the hidden information that could be extracted from the strength of the quantum correlations across many dimensions”.

First and fast

The combination of speed from the Bell-like approach and information from the tomography-like approach meant that key quantum parameters such as dimensionality and the purity of the quantum state could be determined quickly and quantitatively, the first approach to do so.

“We are not suggesting that our approach replace other techniques,” says Forbes. “Rather, we see it as a fast probe to reveal what you are dealing with, and then use this information to make an informed decision on what to do next. A case of horses-for-courses”.

For example, the team see their approach as changing the game in real-world quantum communication links, where a fast measurement of how noisy that quantum state has become and what this has done to the useful dimensions is crucial.

See the full article here .

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The The University of the Witwatersrand (SA) is a multi-campus South African public research university situated in the northern areas of central Johannesburg. The university has its roots in the mining industry, as do Johannesburg and the Witwatersrand in general. Founded in 1896 as the South African School of Mines in Kimberley, it is the third oldest South African university in continuous operation.

The university has an enrollment of 40,259 students as of 2018, of which approximately 20 percent live on campus in the university’s 17 residences. 63 percent of the university’s total enrollment is for undergraduate study, with 35 percent being postgraduate and the remaining 2 percent being Occasional Students.

The 2017 Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) places Wits University, with its overall score, as the highest ranked university in Africa. Wits was ranked as the top university in South Africa in the Center for World University Rankings (CWUR) in 2016. According to the CWUR rankings, Wits occupies this ranking position since 2014.

From City University of New York (US): “Scientists Discover a New Type of Infrared Polaritons at the Surface of Bulk Crystals”

From City University of New York (US)

August 27, 2021

An international team has reported in Nature the first observation of ghost polaritons, which are a new form of surface waves carrying nanoscale light strongly coupled with material oscillations and featuring highly collimated propagation properties. The research team observed these phenomena over a common material – calcite – and showed how ghost polaritons can facilitate a superior control of infrared nano-light for sensing, signal processing, energy harvesting and other technologies.

Illustration of ghost polaritons propagating away from a point source over a calcite surface. Image: credited to HUST.

In recent years, nanophotonics at infrared and terahertz frequencies has become important for highly sensitive, ultracompact and low-loss technologies for bio-molecular and chemical diagnosis, sensors, communications and other applications. Nanomaterial platforms that can facilitate enhanced light-matter interactions at these frequencies have become essential for these technologies. Recent work has been using low-dimensional van der Waals materials, such as graphene, hexagonal boron nitride and alpha-phase molybdenum trioxide (α-MoO3, Nature 2018), because of their highly exotic response to confined light at the nanoscale. However, these emerging nanomaterials require demanding nanofabrication techniques, hindering large-scale nanophotonic technologies.

Writing in Nature on 18th August 2021, a highly collaborative international team led by scientists at The Advanced Science Research Center at the Graduate Center-CUNY (US), Huazhong University of Science and Technology [華中科技大學](CN), National University of Singapore [新加坡国立大学 ] (SG) and National Center for Nanoscience and Technology[国家纳米科学中心](CN) has reported that calcite —a well-known bulk crystal commonly used in other technologies—can naturally support ghost polaritons.

The team explored light interactions with calcite and found unexpected infrared phonon polariton responses. They demonstrated that calcite, which can be easily polished, can support ghost polariton surface waves that feature complex, out-of-plane momentum totally different from any observed surface polariton to date.

“Polaritonics is the science and technology of exploiting strong interactions of light with matter, and it has revolutionized optical sciences in the past few years,” said Andrea Alù, Einstein Professor of Physics at the Graduate Center and Founding Director of the Photonics Initiative at the Advanced Science Research Center at the CUNY Graduate Center. “Our discovery is the latest example of the exciting science and surprising physics that can emerge from exploring polaritons in conventional materials like calcite.”

“We used scattering-type scanning near-field optical microscopy (s-SNOM) to probe these ghost polaritons,” said first author Weiliang Ma, a Ph.D. candidate at HUST. “Excitingly, we have shown ray-like nano-light propagation for up to 20 micrometers, a record long distance for polariton waves at room temperature.”

“We have been thrilled to find a new solution of Maxwell’s equations featuring complex, out-of-plane momentum. And even more excitingly, we have been able to observe it in a very common crystal.” says Guangwei Hu, co-first author, NUS postdoctoral fellow and long-term visitor at CUNY.

“This type of polaritons can be tuned through their optical axis, introducing a new way of manipulation of polaritons, said Cheng-Wei Qiu, Dean’s Chair professor at NUS. “We believe our findings will stimulate exploration of various optical crystals for nanoscale light manipulation.”

Professors Debo Hu and Qing Dai from NCNS and Runkun Chen, Ph.D. and professor Xinliang Zhang from HUST have also contributed significantly to this work.

See the full article here.

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The City University of New York (CUNY) is the public university system of New York City. It is the largest urban university system in the United States, comprising 25 campuses: eleven senior colleges, seven community colleges, one undergraduate honors college, and seven postgraduate institutions. While its constituent colleges date back as far as 1847, CUNY was established in 1961. The university enrolls more than 275,000 students, and counts thirteen Nobel Prize winners and twenty-four MacArthur Fellows among its alumni.

CUNY Component Institutions
1847 Senior College City College
1870 Senior College Hunter College
1919 Senior College Baruch College
1930 Senior College Brooklyn College
1937 Senior College Queens College
1946 Senior College New York City College of Technology
1964 Senior College John Jay College of Criminal Justice
1966 Senior College York College
1968 Senior College Lehman College
1970 Senior College Medgar Evers College
1976 Senior College College of Staten Island
2001 Honors College William E. Macaulay Honors College
1957 Community College Bronx Community College
1958 Community College Queensborough Community College
1963 Community College Borough of Manhattan Community College
1963 Community College Kingsborough Community College
1968 Community College LaGuardia Community College
1970 Community College Hostos Community College
2011 Community College Guttman Community College
1961 Graduate / professional CUNY Graduate Center
1973 Graduate / professional CUNY School of Medicine
1983 Graduate / professional CUNY School of Law
2006 Graduate / professional CUNY Graduate School of Journalism
2006 Graduate / professional CUNY School of Professional Studies
2008 Graduate / professional CUNY School of Public Health
2018 Graduate / professional CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies

From Louisiana State University (US) : “Nanoscale Systems for Generating Various Forms of Light”

From Louisiana State University (US)

Mimi LaValle
Department of Physics & Astronomy
Louisiana State University
225-439-5633
mlavall@lsu.edu

LSU Quantum Researchers Rearrange Photon Distribution to Create Different Light Sources

The diagram illustrates the concept of multiparticle scattering mediated by optical near fields. The additional interference paths induced by confined near fields lead to the modification of the quantum statistics of plasmonic systems. This idea is implemented through a plasmonic multi-slit structure. The looped trajectories represent additional scattering paths induced by confined optical fields in the plasmonic structure. Graphic by Mingyuan Hong.

For decades, scholars have believed that the quantum statistical properties of bosons are preserved in plasmonic systems, and therefore will not create different form of light.

This rapidly growing field of research focuses on quantum properties of light and its interaction with matter at the nanoscale level. Stimulated by experimental work in the possibility of preserving nonclassical correlations in light-matter interactions mediated by scattering of photons and plasmons, it has been assumed that similar dynamics underlie the conservation of the quantum fluctuations that define the nature of light sources. The possibility of using nanoscale system to create exotic forms of light could pave the way for next-generation quantum devices. It could also constitute a novel platform for exploring novel quantum phenomena.

In new findings published in Nature Communications, researchers from Louisiana State University and four collaborating universities have introduced a discovery that changes a paradigm in quantum plasmonics by demonstrating the potential of metallic nanostructures to produce different forms of light.

Their paper, written by collaborators from the University of Alabama-Huntsville (US), Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education [Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey](MX), National Autonomous University of Mexico [Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México](MX) and University Iztapalapa Unit [Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana. La Unidad Iztapalapa](MX), demonstrates that the quantum statistics of multiparticle systems are not always preserved in plasmonic platforms. It also describes the first observation of the modified quantum statistics.

Lead authors, LSU postdoctoral researcher Chenglong You and LSU graduate student Mingyuan Hong, show that optical near fields provide additional scattering paths that can induce complex multiparticle interactions.

“Our findings unveil the possibility of using multiparticle scattering to perform exquisite control of quantum plasmonic systems,” You said. “This result redirects an old paradigm in the field of quantum plasmonics where the fundamental physics uncovered in our discovery will provide a better understanding of the quantum properties of plasmonic systems, and unveil new paths to perform control of quantum multiparticle systems.”

See the full article here.

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Louisiana State University is a public research university in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The university was founded in 1853 in what is now known as Pineville, Louisiana, under the name Louisiana State Seminary of Learning & Military Academy. The current LSU main campus was dedicated in 1926, consists of more than 250 buildings constructed in the style of Italian Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio, and the main campus historic district occupies a 650-acre (2.6 km²) plateau on the banks of the Mississippi River.

Louisiana State University is the flagship school of the state of Louisiana, as well as the flagship institution of the Louisiana State University System, and is the most comprehensive university in Louisiana. In 2017, the university enrolled over 25,000 undergraduate and over 5,000 graduate students in 14 schools and colleges. Several of LSU’s graduate schools, such as the E. J. Ourso College of Business and the Paul M. Hebert Law Center, have received national recognition in their respective fields of study. It is classified among “R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity”. Designated as a land-grant, sea-grant, and space-grant institution, Louisiana State University is also noted for its extensive research facilities, operating some 800 sponsored research projects funded by agencies such as the National Institutes of Health (US), the National Science Foundation (US), the National Endowment for the Humanities (US), and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (US). Louisiana State University is one of eight universities in the United States with dental, law, veterinary, medical, and Master of Business Administration programs. The Louisiana State University School of Veterinary Medicine is one of only 30 veterinary schools in the country and the only one in Louisiana.

Louisiana State University’s athletics department fields teams in 21 varsity sports (9 men’s, 12 women’s), and is a member of the NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association) and the SEC (Southeastern Conference). The university is represented by its mascot, Mike the Tiger.

From Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne [EPFL-École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne] (CH): “Light-matter interactions propel quantum technologies forward”

From Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne [EPFL-École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne] (CH)

26.08.21
Nik Papageorgiou

Physicists at EPFL have found a way to get photons to interact with pairs of atoms for the first time. The breakthrough is important for the field of cavity quantum electrodynamics (QED), a cutting-edge field leading the way to quantum technologies.

A collection of atom pairs inside an optical cavity formed by a pair of mirrors facing each other. The light trapped between the mirrors turns pairs of atoms into molecules in a coherent way. Credit: Ella Maru studio.

There is no doubt that we are moving steadily toward an era of technologies based on quantum physics. But to get there, we first have to master the ability to make light interact with matter – or more technically, photons with atoms.

This has already been achieved to some degree, giving us the cutting-edge field of cavity quantum electrodynamics (QED), which is already used in quantum networks and quantum information processing. Nonetheless, there are still a long way to go. Current light-matter interactions are limited to individual atoms, which limits our ability to study them in the sort of complex systems involved in quantum-based technologies.

In a paper published in Nature, researchers from the group of Jean-Philippe Brantut at EPFL’s School of Basic Sciences have found a way to get photons to ‘mix’ with pairs of atoms at ultra-low temperatures.

The researchers used what is known as a Fermi gas, a state of matter made of atoms that resembles that of electrons in materials. “In the absence of photons, the gas can be prepared in a state where atoms interact very strongly with each other, forming loosely bound pairs,” explains Brantut. “As light is sent onto the gas, some of these pairs can be turned into chemically bound molecules by absorbing with photons.”

A key concept in this new effect is that that it happens “coherently”, which means that photon can be absorbed to turn a pair of atoms into a molecule then emitted back then reabsorbed multiple times. “This implies the pair-photon system forms a new type of ‘particle’ – technically an excitation – which we call ‘pair-polariton’,” says Brantut. “This is made possible in our system, where photons are confined in an ‘optical cavity’ – a closed box that forces them to interact strongly with the atoms.”

The hybrid pair-polaritons take on some of the properties of photons, meaning that they can be measured with optical methods. They also take on some of the properties of the Fermi gas, like the number of atom pairs it had originally before the incoming photons.

“Some of the very intricate properties of the gas are translated onto optical properties, which can be measured in a direct way, and even without perturbing the system,” says Brantut. “A future application would be in quantum chemistry, since we demonstrate that some chemical reactions can be coherently produced using single photons.”

See the full article here .

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EPFL campus

The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne [EPFL-École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne] (CH) is a research institute and university in Lausanne, Switzerland, that specializes in natural sciences and engineering. It is one of the two Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology, and it has three main missions: education, research and technology transfer.

The QS World University Rankings ranks EPFL(CH) 14th in the world across all fields in their 2020/2021 ranking, whereas Times Higher Education World University Rankings ranks EPFL(CH) as the world’s 19th best school for Engineering and Technology in 2020.

EPFL(CH) is located in the French-speaking part of Switzerland; the sister institution in the German-speaking part of Switzerland is the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology ETH Zürich [Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich)](CH) . Associated with several specialized research institutes, the two universities form the Domain of the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology (ETH Domain) [ETH-Bereich; Domaine des Écoles polytechniques fédérales] (CH) which is directly dependent on the Federal Department of Economic Affairs, Education and Research. In connection with research and teaching activities, EPFL(CH) operates a nuclear reactor CROCUS; a Tokamak Fusion reactor; a Blue Gene/Q Supercomputer; and P3 bio-hazard facilities.

The roots of modern-day EPFL(CH) can be traced back to the foundation of a private school under the name École spéciale de Lausanne in 1853 at the initiative of Lois Rivier, a graduate of the École Centrale Paris (FR) and John Gay the then professor and rector of the Académie de Lausanne. At its inception it had only 11 students and the offices was located at Rue du Valentin in Lausanne. In 1869, it became the technical department of the public Académie de Lausanne. When the Académie was reorganised and acquired the status of a university in 1890, the technical faculty changed its name to École d’ingénieurs de l’Université de Lausanne. In 1946, it was renamed the École polytechnique de l’Université de Lausanne (EPUL). In 1969, the EPUL was separated from the rest of the University of Lausanne and became a federal institute under its current name. EPFL(CH), like ETH Zürich(CH), is thus directly controlled by the Swiss federal government. In contrast, all other universities in Switzerland are controlled by their respective cantonal governments. Following the nomination of Patrick Aebischer as president in 2000, EPFL(CH) has started to develop into the field of life sciences. It absorbed the Swiss Institute for Experimental Cancer Research (ISREC) in 2008.

In 1946, there were 360 students. In 1969, EPFL(CH) had 1,400 students and 55 professors. In the past two decades the university has grown rapidly and as of 2012 roughly 14,000 people study or work on campus, about 9,300 of these being Bachelor, Master or PhD students. The environment at modern day EPFL(CH) is highly international with the school attracting students and researchers from all over the world. More than 125 countries are represented on the campus and the university has two official languages, French and English.

Organization

EPFL is organised into eight schools, themselves formed of institutes that group research units (laboratories or chairs) around common themes:

School of Basic Sciences (SB, Jan S. Hesthaven)

Institute of Mathematics (MATH, Victor Panaretos)
Institute of Chemical Sciences and Engineering (ISIC, Emsley Lyndon)
Institute of Physics (IPHYS, Harald Brune)
European Centre of Atomic and Molecular Computations (CECAM, Ignacio Pagonabarraga Mora)
Bernoulli Center (CIB, Nicolas Monod)
Biomedical Imaging Research Center (CIBM, Rolf Gruetter)
Interdisciplinary Center for Electron Microscopy (CIME, Cécile Hébert)
Max Planck-EPFL Centre for Molecular Nanosciences and Technology (CMNT, Thomas Rizzo)
Swiss Plasma Center (SPC, Ambrogio Fasoli)
Laboratory of Astrophysics (LASTRO, Jean-Paul Kneib)

School of Engineering (STI, Ali Sayed)

Institute of Electrical Engineering (IEL, Giovanni De Micheli)
Institute of Mechanical Engineering (IGM, Thomas Gmür)
Institute of Materials (IMX, Michaud Véronique)
Institute of Microengineering (IMT, Olivier Martin)
Institute of Bioengineering (IBI, Matthias Lütolf)

School of Architecture, Civil and Environmental Engineering (ENAC, Claudia R. Binder)

Institute of Architecture (IA, Luca Ortelli)
Civil Engineering Institute (IIC, Eugen Brühwiler)
Institute of Urban and Regional Sciences (INTER, Philippe Thalmann)
Environmental Engineering Institute (IIE, David Andrew Barry)

School of Computer and Communication Sciences (IC, James Larus)

Algorithms & Theoretical Computer Science
Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning
Computational Biology
Computer Architecture & Integrated Systems
Data Management & Information Retrieval
Graphics & Vision
Human-Computer Interaction
Information & Communication Theory
Networking
Programming Languages & Formal Methods
Security & Cryptography
Signal & Image Processing
Systems

School of Life Sciences (SV, Gisou van der Goot)

Bachelor-Master Teaching Section in Life Sciences and Technologies (SSV)
Brain Mind Institute (BMI, Carmen Sandi)
Institute of Bioengineering (IBI, Melody Swartz)
Swiss Institute for Experimental Cancer Research (ISREC, Douglas Hanahan)
Global Health Institute (GHI, Bruno Lemaitre)
Ten Technology Platforms & Core Facilities (PTECH)
Center for Phenogenomics (CPG)
NCCR Synaptic Bases of Mental Diseases (NCCR-SYNAPSY)

College of Management of Technology (CDM)

Swiss Finance Institute at EPFL (CDM-SFI, Damir Filipovic)
Section of Management of Technology and Entrepreneurship (CDM-PMTE, Daniel Kuhn)
Institute of Technology and Public Policy (CDM-ITPP, Matthias Finger)
Institute of Management of Technology and Entrepreneurship (CDM-MTEI, Ralf Seifert)
Section of Financial Engineering (CDM-IF, Julien Hugonnier)

College of Humanities (CDH, Thomas David)

Human and social sciences teaching program (CDH-SHS, Thomas David)

EPFL Middle East (EME, Dr. Franco Vigliotti)[62]

Section of Energy Management and Sustainability (MES, Prof. Maher Kayal)

In addition to the eight schools there are seven closely related institutions

Swiss Cancer Centre
Center for Biomedical Imaging (CIBM)
Centre for Advanced Modelling Science (CADMOS)
École cantonale d’art de Lausanne (ECAL)
Campus Biotech
Wyss Center for Bio- and Neuro-engineering
Swiss National Supercomputing Centre

From University of Southampton (UK) and Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich [ETH Zürich] [Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich] (CH): “Researchers discover new limit of trapping light at the nanoscale”

From University of Southampton (UK)

and

Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich [ETH Zürich] [Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich] (CH)

10 August 2021

Light focussed by nano-antennas on a gold surface leaks out by generating propagating plasmons.

Physicists from the University of Southampton and ETH Zürich have reached a new threshold of light-matter coupling at the nanoscale.

The international research, published this week in Nature Photonics, combined theoretical and experimental findings to establish a fundamental limitation of our ability to confine and exploit light.

The collaboration focused on photonic nano-antennas fabricated in ever reducing sizes on the top of a two-dimensional electron gas. The setup is commonly used in laboratories all over the world to explore the effect of intense electromagnetic coupling, taking advantage of the antennas’ ability to trap and focus light close to electrons.

Professor Simone De Liberato, Director of the Quantum Theory and Technology group at the University of Southampton, says: “The fabrication of photonic resonators able to focus light in extremely small volumes is proving a key technology which is presently enabling advances in fields as different as material science, optoelectronics, chemistry, quantum technologies, and many others.

“In particular, the focussed light can be made to interact extremely strongly with matter, making electromagnetism non-perturbative. Light can then be used to modify the properties of the materials it interacts with, thus becoming a powerful tool for material science. Light can be effectively woven into novel materials.”

Scientists discovered that light could no longer be confined in the system below a critical dimension, of the order of 250nm in the sample under study, when the experiment started exciting propagating plasmons. This caused waves of electrons to move away from the resonator and spill the energy of the photon.

Experiments performed in the group of Professors Jérôme Faist and Giacomo Scalari at ETH Zürich had obtained results that could not be interpreted with state-of-the-art understanding of light-matter coupling. The physicists approached Southampton’s School of Physics and Astronomy, where researchers led theoretical analysis and built a novel theory able to quantitatively reproduce the results.

Professor De Liberato believes the newfound limits could yet be exceeded by future experiments, unlocking dramatic technological advances that hinge on ultra-confined electromagnetic fields.

See the full article here .

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Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich [ETH Zürich] [Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich] (CH) is a public research university in the city of Zürich, Switzerland. Founded by the Swiss Federal Government in 1854 with the stated mission to educate engineers and scientists, the school focuses exclusively on science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Like its sister institution Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne [EPFL-École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne](CH) , it is part of the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology Domain (ETH Domain)) , part of the Swiss Federal Department of Economic Affairs, Education and Research [EAER][Eidgenössisches Departement für Wirtschaft, Bildung und Forschung] [Département fédéral de l’économie, de la formation et de la recherche] (CH).

The university is an attractive destination for international students thanks to low tuition fees of 809 CHF per semester, PhD and graduate salaries that are amongst the world’s highest, and a world-class reputation in academia and industry. There are currently 22,200 students from over 120 countries, of which 4,180 are pursuing doctoral degrees. In the 2021 edition of the QS World University Rankings ETH Zürich is ranked 6th in the world and 8th by the Times Higher Education World Rankings 2020. In the 2020 QS World University Rankings by subject it is ranked 4th in the world for engineering and technology (2nd in Europe) and 1st for earth & marine science.

As of November 2019, 21 Nobel laureates, 2 Fields Medalists, 2 Pritzker Prize winners, and 1 Turing Award winner have been affiliated with the Institute, including Albert Einstein. Other notable alumni include John von Neumann and Santiago Calatrava. It is a founding member of the IDEA League and the International Alliance of Research Universities (IARU) and a member of the CESAER network.

ETH Zürich was founded on 7 February 1854 by the Swiss Confederation and began giving its first lectures on 16 October 1855 as a polytechnic institute (eidgenössische polytechnische Schule) at various sites throughout the city of Zurich. It was initially composed of six faculties: architecture, civil engineering, mechanical engineering, chemistry, forestry, and an integrated department for the fields of mathematics, natural sciences, literature, and social and political sciences.

It is locally still known as Polytechnikum, or simply as Poly, derived from the original name eidgenössische polytechnische Schule, which translates to “federal polytechnic school”.

ETH Zürich is a federal institute (i.e., under direct administration by the Swiss government), whereas the University of Zürich [Universität Zürich ] (CH) is a cantonal institution. The decision for a new federal university was heavily disputed at the time; the liberals pressed for a “federal university”, while the conservative forces wanted all universities to remain under cantonal control, worried that the liberals would gain more political power than they already had. In the beginning, both universities were co-located in the buildings of the University of Zürich.

From 1905 to 1908, under the presidency of Jérôme Franel, the course program of ETH Zürich was restructured to that of a real university and ETH Zürich was granted the right to award doctorates. In 1909 the first doctorates were awarded. In 1911, it was given its current name, Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule. In 1924, another reorganization structured the university in 12 departments. However, it now has 16 departments.

ETH Zürich, EPFL (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne) [École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne](CH), and four associated research institutes form the Domain of the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology (ETH Domain) [ETH-Bereich; Domaine des Écoles polytechniques fédérales] (CH) with the aim of collaborating on scientific projects.

Reputation and ranking

ETH Zürich is ranked among the top universities in the world. Typically, popular rankings place the institution as the best university in continental Europe and ETH Zürich is consistently ranked among the top 1-5 universities in Europe, and among the top 3-10 best universities of the world.

Historically, ETH Zürich has achieved its reputation particularly in the fields of chemistry, mathematics and physics. There are 32 Nobel laureates who are associated with ETH Zürich, the most recent of whom is Richard F. Heck, awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 2010. Albert Einstein is perhaps its most famous alumnus.

In 2018, the QS World University Rankings placed ETH Zürich at 7th overall in the world. In 2015, ETH Zürich was ranked 5th in the world in Engineering, Science and Technology, just behind the Massachusetts Institute of Technology(US), Stanford University(US) and University of Cambridge(UK). In 2015, ETH Zürich also ranked 6th in the world in Natural Sciences, and in 2016 ranked 1st in the world for Earth & Marine Sciences for the second consecutive year.

In 2016, Times Higher Education World University Rankings ranked ETH Zürich 9th overall in the world and 8th in the world in the field of Engineering & Technology, just behind the Massachusetts Institute of Technology(US), Stanford University(US), California Institute of Technology(US), Princeton University(US), University of Cambridge(UK), Imperial College London(UK) and University of Oxford(UK) .

In a comparison of Swiss universities by swissUP Ranking and in rankings published by CHE comparing the universities of German-speaking countries, ETH Zürich traditionally is ranked first in natural sciences, computer science and engineering sciences.

In the survey CHE ExcellenceRanking on the quality of Western European graduate school programs in the fields of biology, chemistry, physics and mathematics, ETH Zürich was assessed as one of the three institutions to have excellent programs in all the considered fields, the other two being Imperial College London(UK) and the University of Cambridge(UK), respectively.

The University of Southampton (UK) is a world-class university built on the quality and diversity of our community. Our staff place a high value on excellence and creativity, supporting independence of thought, and the freedom to challenge existing knowledge and beliefs through critical research and scholarship. Through our education and research we transform people’s lives and change the world for the better.

Vision 2020 is the basis of our strategy.

Since publication of the previous University Strategy in 2010 we have achieved much of what we set out to do against a backdrop of a major economic downturn and radical change in higher education in the UK.

Vision 2020 builds on these foundations, describing our future ambition and priorities. It presents a vision of the University as a confident, growing, outwardly-focused institution that has global impact. It describes a connected institution equally committed to education and research, providing a distinctive educational experience for its students, and confident in its place as a leading international research university, achieving world-wide impact.

From Cornell Chronicle (US) : “Metamaterials research challenges fundamental limits in photonics”

From Cornell Chronicle (US)

August 10, 2021
Eric Laine
cunews@cornell.edu

Francesco Monticone, assistant professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (right), and doctoral student Zeki Hayran. Credit: Eric Laine/Cornell University.

Cornell researchers are proposing a new way to modulate both the absorptive and the refractive qualities of metamaterials in real time, and their findings open intriguing new opportunities to control, in time and space, the propagation and scattering of waves for applications in various areas of wave physics and engineering.

The research published in the journal Optica is authored by doctoral students Zeki Hayran and Aobo Chen, M.S. ’19, along with their adviser, Francesco Monticone, assistant professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering in the College of Engineering.

The theoretical work aims to expand the capabilities of metamaterials to absorb or refract electromagnetic waves. Previous research was limited to modifying either absorption or refraction, but the Monticone Research Group has now shown that if both qualities are modulated in real time, the effectiveness of the metamaterial can be greatly increased.

These temporally modulated metamaterials, sometimes referred to as “chrono-metamaterials,” may open unexplored opportunities and enable technological advances in electromagnetics and photonics.

“What we demonstrate,” Monticone said, “is that if you modulate both properties in time, you manage to absorb electromagnetic waves much more efficiently than in a static structure, or in a structure in which you modulate either one of these two degrees of freedom individually. We combined these two aspects together to create a much more effective system.”

The findings may lead to the development of new metamaterials with wave absorption and scattering properties that far outperform what is currently available. For example, a broadband absorber has to be thicker than a certain value to be effective, but the material thickness will limit the applications of the design.

“To decrease the thickness and increase the bandwidth of such an absorber, you have to overcome the limitations of conventional materials,” Hayran said. “One of the ways to bypass these limitations is through temporally modulating the structure.”

The aim of Monticone’s group is to open new areas of research to produce increasingly efficient practical applications.

“What we are trying to do is not incremental changes to the technology,” Monticone said. “We want disruptive changes. That’s really what motivates us. So how can we make a dramatic improvement to the technology, not just an incremental improvement? To do that, very often, you have to go back to the fundamentals.”

The new research pushes the limits of electromagnetic wave absorption by using another degree of freedom, which is modulation in time, something not typically done in this area, but now receiving increasing research attention.

With a new theoretical underpinning in place, experimentally implementing temporal modulations of this kind is the challenge for further research. A physical experiment would first need to design a mechanism to control the modulation of absorptive and refractive qualities of a material over time, which might include laser beams or microwave components.

The ideas have direct implications for several applications, such as broadband radar absorption and temporal invisibility and cloaking. Applications could also extend to other domains of wave physics such as acoustics and elastodynamics.

“Our findings, and the exciting results by other researchers working in this area, highlight the many opportunities offered by time-varying metamaterials for both classical and quantum electromagnetics and photonics,” Monticone said.

This research is supported by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (US) and the National Science Foundation (US). Additional support is provided through the Fulbright Foreign Student Program of the Department of State (US) .

See the full article here .

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Stem Education Coalition

Once called “the first American university” by educational historian Frederick Rudolph, Cornell University represents a distinctive mix of eminent scholarship and democratic ideals. Adding practical subjects to the classics and admitting qualified students regardless of nationality, race, social circumstance, gender, or religion was quite a departure when Cornell was founded in 1865.

Today’s Cornell reflects this heritage of egalitarian excellence. It is home to the nation’s first colleges devoted to hotel administration, industrial and labor relations, and veterinary medicine. Both a private university and the land-grant institution of New York State, Cornell University is the most educationally diverse member of the Ivy League.

On the Ithaca campus alone nearly 20,000 students representing every state and 120 countries choose from among 4,000 courses in 11 undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools. Many undergraduates participate in a wide range of interdisciplinary programs, play meaningful roles in original research, and study in Cornell programs in Washington, New York City, and the world over.

Cornell University (US) is a private, statutory, Ivy League and land-grant research university in Ithaca, New York. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, the university was intended to teach and make contributions in all fields of knowledge—from the classics to the sciences, and from the theoretical to the applied. These ideals, unconventional for the time, are captured in Cornell’s founding principle, a popular 1868 quotation from founder Ezra Cornell: “I would found an institution where any person can find instruction in any study.”

The university is broadly organized into seven undergraduate colleges and seven graduate divisions at its main Ithaca campus, with each college and division defining its specific admission standards and academic programs in near autonomy. The university also administers two satellite medical campuses, one in New York City and one in Education City, Qatar, and Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute(US) in New York City, a graduate program that incorporates technology, business, and creative thinking. The program moved from Google’s Chelsea Building in New York City to its permanent campus on Roosevelt Island in September 2017.

Cornell is one of the few private land grant universities in the United States. Of its seven undergraduate colleges, three are state-supported statutory or contract colleges through the SUNY – The State University of New York (US) system, including its Agricultural and Human Ecology colleges as well as its Industrial Labor Relations school. Of Cornell’s graduate schools, only the veterinary college is state-supported. As a land grant college, Cornell operates a cooperative extension outreach program in every county of New York and receives annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions. The Cornell University Ithaca Campus comprises 745 acres, but is much larger when the Cornell Botanic Gardens (more than 4,300 acres) and the numerous university-owned lands in New York City are considered.

Alumni and affiliates of Cornell have reached many notable and influential positions in politics, media, and science. As of January 2021, 61 Nobel laureates, four Turing Award winners and one Fields Medalist have been affiliated with Cornell. Cornell counts more than 250,000 living alumni, and its former and present faculty and alumni include 34 Marshall Scholars, 33 Rhodes Scholars, 29 Truman Scholars, 7 Gates Scholars, 55 Olympic Medalists, 10 current Fortune 500 CEOs, and 35 billionaire alumni. Since its founding, Cornell has been a co-educational, non-sectarian institution where admission has not been restricted by religion or race. The student body consists of more than 15,000 undergraduate and 9,000 graduate students from all 50 American states and 119 countries.

History

Cornell University was founded on April 27, 1865; the New York State (NYS) Senate authorized the university as the state’s land grant institution. Senator Ezra Cornell offered his farm in Ithaca, New York, as a site and $500,000 of his personal fortune as an initial endowment. Fellow senator and educator Andrew Dickson White agreed to be the first president. During the next three years, White oversaw the construction of the first two buildings and traveled to attract students and faculty. The university was inaugurated on October 7, 1868, and 412 men were enrolled the next day.

Cornell developed as a technologically innovative institution, applying its research to its own campus and to outreach efforts. For example, in 1883 it was one of the first university campuses to use electricity from a water-powered dynamo to light the grounds. Since 1894, Cornell has included colleges that are state funded and fulfill statutory requirements; it has also administered research and extension activities that have been jointly funded by state and federal matching programs.

Cornell has had active alumni since its earliest classes. It was one of the first universities to include alumni-elected representatives on its Board of Trustees. Cornell was also among the Ivies that had heightened student activism during the 1960s related to cultural issues; civil rights; and opposition to the Vietnam War, with protests and occupations resulting in the resignation of Cornell’s president and the restructuring of university governance. Today the university has more than 4,000 courses. Cornell is also known for the Residential Club Fire of 1967, a fire in the Residential Club building that killed eight students and one professor.

Since 2000, Cornell has been expanding its international programs. In 2004, the university opened the Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar. It has partnerships with institutions in India, Singapore, and the People’s Republic of China. Former president Jeffrey S. Lehman described the university, with its high international profile, a “transnational university”. On March 9, 2004, Cornell and Stanford University(US) laid the cornerstone for a new ‘Bridging the Rift Center’ to be built and jointly operated for education on the Israel–Jordan border.

Research

Cornell, a research university, is ranked fourth in the world in producing the largest number of graduates who go on to pursue PhDs in engineering or the natural sciences at American institutions, and fifth in the world in producing graduates who pursue PhDs at American institutions in any field. Research is a central element of the university’s mission; in 2009 Cornell spent $671 million on science and engineering research and development, the 16th highest in the United States. Cornell is classified among “R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity”.

For the 2016–17 fiscal year, the university spent $984.5 million on research. Federal sources constitute the largest source of research funding, with total federal investment of $438.2 million. The agencies contributing the largest share of that investment are the Department of Health and Human Services and the National Science Foundation(US), accounting for 49.6% and 24.4% of all federal investment, respectively. Cornell was on the top-ten list of U.S. universities receiving the most patents in 2003, and was one of the nation’s top five institutions in forming start-up companies. In 2004–05, Cornell received 200 invention disclosures; filed 203 U.S. patent applications; completed 77 commercial license agreements; and distributed royalties of more than $4.1 million to Cornell units and inventors.

Since 1962, Cornell has been involved in unmanned missions to Mars. In the 21st century, Cornell had a hand in the Mars Exploration Rover Mission. Cornell’s Steve Squyres, Principal Investigator for the Athena Science Payload, led the selection of the landing zones and requested data collection features for the Spirit and Opportunity rovers. NASA-JPL/Caltech(US) engineers took those requests and designed the rovers to meet them. The rovers, both of which have operated long past their original life expectancies, are responsible for the discoveries that were awarded 2004 Breakthrough of the Year honors by Science. Control of the Mars rovers has shifted between National Aeronautics and Space Administration(US)’s JPL-Caltech (US) and Cornell’s Space Sciences Building.

Further, Cornell researchers discovered the rings around the planet Uranus, and Cornell built and operated the telescope at Arecibo Observatory located in Arecibo, Puerto Rico(US) until 2011, when they transferred the operations to SRI International, the Universities Space Research Association (US) and the Metropolitan University of Puerto Rico [Universidad Metropolitana de Puerto Rico](US).

The Automotive Crash Injury Research Project was begun in 1952. It pioneered the use of crash testing, originally using corpses rather than dummies. The project discovered that improved door locks; energy-absorbing steering wheels; padded dashboards; and seat belts could prevent an extraordinary percentage of injuries.

In the early 1980s, Cornell deployed the first IBM 3090-400VF and coupled two IBM 3090-600E systems to investigate coarse-grained parallel computing. In 1984, the National Science Foundation began work on establishing five new supercomputer centers, including the Cornell Center for Advanced Computing, to provide high-speed computing resources for research within the United States. As an National Science Foundation (US) center, Cornell deployed the first IBM Scalable Parallel supercomputer.

In the 1990s, Cornell developed scheduling software and deployed the first supercomputer built by Dell. Most recently, Cornell deployed Red Cloud, one of the first cloud computing services designed specifically for research. Today, the center is a partner on the National Science Foundation XSEDE-Extreme Science Engineering Discovery Environment supercomputing program, providing coordination for XSEDE architecture and design, systems reliability testing, and online training using the Cornell Virtual Workshop learning platform.

Cornell scientists have researched the fundamental particles of nature for more than 70 years. Cornell physicists, such as Hans Bethe, contributed not only to the foundations of nuclear physics but also participated in the Manhattan Project. In the 1930s, Cornell built the second cyclotron in the United States. In the 1950s, Cornell physicists became the first to study synchrotron radiation.

During the 1990s, the Cornell Electron Storage Ring, located beneath Alumni Field, was the world’s highest-luminosity electron-positron collider. After building the synchrotron at Cornell, Robert R. Wilson took a leave of absence to become the founding director of DOE’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory(US), which involved designing and building the largest accelerator in the United States.

Cornell’s accelerator and high-energy physics groups are involved in the design of the proposed ILC-International Linear Collider(JP) and plan to participate in its construction and operation. The International Linear Collider(JP), to be completed in the late 2010s, will complement the CERN Large Hadron Collider(CH) and shed light on questions such as the identity of dark matter and the existence of extra dimensions.

As part of its research work, Cornell has established several research collaborations with universities around the globe. For example, a partnership with the University of Sussex(UK) (including the Institute of Development Studies at Sussex) allows research and teaching collaboration between the two institutions.