news 2020

The Lasers, Optics and Spectroscopies (LOS) technological platform has just received a new spectrometer. Its particularity? It can be used in many fields and allows the study of phenomena with very high spectral resolution and at very high speed - of the order of a microsecond.

Recent research published by the CMT group in collaboration with Rutgers University uncover a novel way of achieving flat bands in through strain superlattices. An international team led by researchers at Rutgers University in the US has found a way to create "flat? electronic bands - that is, electron states in which there is no relationship between the electrons' energy and velocity - in graphene simply by causing the material to buckle.

Plasma astrophysicists at KU Leuven have created the first self-consistent simulation of the physical processes that occur during a solar flare. The researchers used Flemish supercomputers and a new combination of physical models. Solar flares are explosions on the surface of the Sun that release an enormous amount of energy, equivalent to a trillion 'Little Boy' atomic bombs exploding at the same time.

At the European nuclear and particle physics laboratory CERN, physicists can produce extremely rare short-lived atoms and molecules. Researchers from KU Leuven have shown that these particles lead the way to uncharted territory in nuclear and particle physics. One of the oldest active installations at the Centre for European Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva is the ISOLDE laboratory.

An interdisciplinary team of scientists from KU Leuven, the University of Bremen, the Leibniz Institute of Materials Engineering, and the University of Ioannina has succeeded in killing tumour cells in mice using nano-sized copper compounds together with immunotherapy. After the therapy, the cancer did not return.

Freestanding clusters of twenty gold atoms take the shape of a pyramid, researchers discovered. This is in contrast with most elements, which organize themselves by forming shells around one central atom. The team of researchers led by KU Leuven published their findings in Science Advances . Clusters composed of a few atoms tend to be spherical.