Quantum mechanics (QM) textbooks both shape classroom instruction and reflect the pedagogical strategies of the lecturers and researchers who write them. This study analyzes the didactic structures of university-level QM textbooks across nations and eras by mapping the chapter-level placement of mathematical formalisms, illustrative physical systems, foundations and interpretations. The...
Accurate photometric calibration of astronomical photographic plates remains a fundamental challenge in astronomy due to the mismatch of spectral sensitivities of photographic plates and pass bands of modern calibration catalogs.
We intend to derive consistent natural magnitudes for celestial sources within the intrinsic photometric systems of astronomical photographic plates by using Gaia...
The combination of plasmonic nano-antennas and atomically thin semiconductors offers an ideal platform to explore light matter coupling on the nanoscale. One reason is that the natural Bohr radius of excitons in these materials is in the range of a few nanometers and therefore significantly smaller than the optical diffraction limit, i.e. the resolution of standard far-field optical setups. In...
Compact and efficient light sources are essential for integrated photonic circuits, yet their direct integration with silicon-based platforms remains challenging due to the inefficient light emission of silicon. III–V semiconductor nanowires offer a promising route towards nanoscale light sources, combining a small footprint and efficient strain relaxation with the direct band gap required for...
The combination of scanning transmission X-ray microscopy (STXM) and X-ray fluorescence (XRF) analysis enables the simultaneous acquisition of elemental distribution maps and multiple transmission imaging modes. In the soft and tender X-ray range, this combination has become an increasingly powerful tool for materials science, biomedical, and environmental research.
We present the portable...
A successful and effective global energy transition requires an enormous expansion of renewable energy technologies at the terawatt scale. Perovskite solar cells have high potential to address this challenge as they are offering high efficiency, cost-effective fabrication and material flexibility. Alongside performance, sustainable development also requires a consistent focus on scalability....
Polyatomic molecular ions offer new opportunities for precision spectroscopy and quantum control due to their rich internal structure. At the same time, their complex energy levels and lack of cycling transitions makes their state-preparation and readout challenging. I will present a cryogenic trapped-ion experiment which we recently developed and our first results demonstrating chemistry with...
Scanning nitrogen-vacancy (NV) magnetometry is a powerful technique for nanoscale magnetic imaging. In this approach, the conventional atomic force microscopy tip is replaced by a diamond nanopillar containing a single NV center, which serves as a highly sensitive local magnetic field sensor. By scanning the NV center over a sample, the magnetic stray field can be mapped with high spatial...
High-entropy transition-metal diborides (HEDBs; HETMB$_2$) retain the hexagonal AlB$_2$ structure while introducing severe multication disorder, raising practical questions about how large and how random a supercell must be for reliable first-principles predictions. Here, density functional theory calculations (ABINIT, PBE, norm-conserving pseudopotentials) are used to connect electronic...
Are the spectroscopic properties of plasmon- and photon-induced carriers fundamentally different? This question is crucial for advancing plasmonic energy conversion. Initial studies have suggested characteristic energy and momentum distributions for the photoemission of both bulk plasmon resonances and surface plasmons. For surface plasmons, however, the separation of plasmon and...
Germanium has emerged as a promising platform for superconductor–semiconductor hybrid devices [1,2] due to its compatibility with existing CMOS technology, high carrier mobility [3], and a relatively strong spin–orbit coupling [4]. A critical requirement for such hybrid systems is the realization of a transparent and well-defined interface between the superconductor and the semiconductor at...
Laura Rojo Guerrero1*, Niklas Schmidt1, Elena Blundo1,2, Jonathan J. Finley1,3
1Walter Schottky Institut and TUM School of Natural Sciences, Technische Universität München, Am Coulombwall 4, Garching, Germany
2Physics Department, Sapienza University of Rome, 00185 Rome, Italy
3Munich Center for Quantum Science and Technology (MCQST), Munich, Germany 1
Department of Nanoscale Research,...
Sukhjit P. Singh,1 Elnaz Bazzazi,
2, ∗ Diego N. Bernal-Garc´ıa,1 Simon White,1 Hassan Jamal Latief,3 Alison
Goldingay,3 Sven Rogge,3 Sergei Slussarenko,1 Farzad Ghafari,1 Emanuele Polino,1 and Nora Tischler1
1Queensland Quantum and Advanced Technologies Research Institute,
Centre for Quantum Computation and Communication Technology,
Griffith University, Yuggera Country, Brisbane,...
Approximately 80\% of global energy is currently lost as low-grade waste heat (300–600 K). While solid-state thermoelectric (TE) generators present a promising solution for waste heat recovery, conventional high-efficiency TE materials are typically toxic and incompatible with standard Complementary Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor (CMOS) manufacturing, severely hindering their large-scale industrial...
Speaker & Author: Isabella Starflinger
Co-Authors and supervisor: Nikolas Rapp, Dr. Weiyu Zhang and Prof. Dr.
Thomas Pfeifer (Max-Planck-Institut für Kernphysik, Heidelberg)
Description:
This Master thesis lies at the interface of physics and the life sciences and explores whether non-classical properties of light can influence biological processes beyond conventional light–matter...
Ultraviolet (UV) photonic integrated circuits (PICs) have many interesting applications, such as biochemical sensing, atomic clocks, and UV Raman spectroscopy. For realizing PICs in the UV spectral range, materials with a large bandgap are required to facilitate low optical losses. One exciting option is AlGaN as it allows the monolithic integration of AlGaN based UV light emitting diodes...
Photovoltaics play a central role in climate change mitigation. Perovskite solar cells are a promising future technology with respect to sustainability and scalability towards the terawatt scale. Current research is focusing on long-term stability and their application in tandem solar cells.
Low dimensional perovskites (LDPs) are being investigated as surface passivation and charge blocking...
Upon exposure to saliva, solid surfaces in the oral cavity are rapidly covered by a bacteria-free pellicle, mainly composed of proteins and polysaccharides. This presents the first step in oral biofilm formation. Despite its importance for subsequent bacterial adhesion, the quantitative contribution of its components remains poorly understood. While protein adsorption has been extensively...
We characterize the lowest optically active excitation of a one-dimensional extended Hubbard chain with on-site repulsion $U_0$ and nearest-neighbor repulsion $U_1$. Two complementary natural-orbital diagnostics disentangle the character of the excitation: the one-particle-one-hole (1p1h) weight $W_{1p1h}$, which measures how completely a single particle-hole picture accounts for the...
Artificial intelligence (AI) has become widely adopted across many domains, but
conventional electronic implementations still suffer from high computational cost and
significant energy consumption during inference. Building on previously reported
optical neural networks for MNIST handwritten digit (0–9) classification (X. Lin, Y.
Rivenson et al., 2018), we simplify a diffractive...
Nina Miller, and Johanna Eichhorn —
Physics Department, School of Natural Sciences, Technical University
of Munich, Am Coulombwall 4, 85748 Garching, Germany
Earth-abundant electrocatalysts—such as transition metal oxyhydroxides and oxides—have emerged as promising and cost-effective alternatives to noble metals for water-splitting applications. To be viable, these electrocatalysts must...
Single-molecule microscopy utilizing alternating laser excitation (ALEX) is an established method for the characterization of biomolecules. However, existing laser control systems are often costly and OEM-specific, limiting flexibility in customized microscopy environments.
To overcome these limitations, we developed an independent, user-friendly laser control approach based on a...
PUNCH4NFDI unites Germany's astroparticle, particle, astrophysics, hadron, and nuclear physics communities to collaboratively develop and implement infrastructures that enable FAIR data management across the full research data lifecycle within an integrated digital ecosystem. Over its first funding phase, the consortium established the core building blocks of this ecosystem: the concept of...
An ensemble of atoms coupled to a common electromagnetic environment displays collective effects, such as sub- and superradiance. These can be harnessed experimentally in cold atom array experiments, where the atoms are tightly confined and close to the motional ground state. This requires to treat atomic motion, both quantum and thermally induced, as a quantum degree of freedom which couples...
The large ground-state nuclear-spin manifold of fermionic alkaline-earth atoms is an attractive resource for quantum information, thanks to its weak coupling to external perturbations. However, detection schemes that combine fast state-resolved imaging beyond two states with single-atom resolution remain a significant challenge. State-of-the-art quantum simulators with single-particle and spin...
The poster deals with the alignment of a transportable THz-ATR system for the analysis of hazardous liquids. By using an ATR prism, liquids with a high absorption coefficient, such as water, can be investigated. The system uses photoconductive antennas with a high bandwidth of up to 6 THz. The poster describes the alignment of the collimating lenses. Since the expected bandwidth was not...
When a metal is irradiated with an ultrashort optical laser pulse, the electrons become excited, disturbing the electron distribution into a state far from equilibrium. The subsequent relaxation dynamics determine how the absorbed energy is redistributed within the electronic system and transferred to the lattice, making electron thermalization a key process in ultrafast laser-matter...
Quantum sensing promises new opportunities in applied physics and
life sciences due to high sensitivity, precision, and high spatial resolution.
A possible implementation of a quantum sensor that became well
known in recent years is based on NV centers in diamond. Whereas NV
center based quantum sensors are based on microwave manipulation
of their spin states, the negatively charged group...
