Latest press releases
Fewer unknowns in the laser nanosynthesis of composites
31 August 2022
Composite particles with submicron sizes can be produced by irradiating a suspension of nanoparticles with a laser beam. Violent physical and chemical processes take place during irradiation, many of which have to date been poorly understood. Recently completed experiments, carried out at the Institute of Nuclear Physics of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Cracow, have shed new light on some of these hitherto puzzles.
In search of universal laws of diffusion with resetting
4 August 2022
The manner in which animals penetrate a neighbourhood searching for food shows similarities to the movements of liquid particles in plant capillaries or gas molecules near an absorbing wall. These phenomena – and many others in nature – can be thought of as processes called anomalous diffusion with resetting. Recent research suggests that they have properties of a very universal nature.
Salutary delay in the reaction of crystal atoms to avalanche of photons
14 July 2022
Using X-ray laser pulses, the structure of matter can be studied with previously unprecedented accuracy. However, the pulses are so violent that they destroy the sample being irradiated. Notwithstanding, a Polish-Japanese team of physicists has just succeeded in demonstrating that atoms of the crystal under investigation react to an avalanche of photons with a certain delay. The discovery means that by using sufficiently short laser pulses, it will be possible to view an undisturbed structure of matter.
Complexity of crystallization amazes physicists
27 June 2022
On the one hand, softly organized and ordered, on the other hand, flowing like water or honey – this is the dual nature of liquid crystals. Scientists from the Institute of Nuclear Physics of the Polish Academy of Sciences took a detailed look at one of the aspects of liquid crystals: the crystallization processes. The latest research shows that in the case of certain types of liquid crystals, these processes not only occurs when they are cooled and heated but are also surprisingly complex in nature.
Difficult-to-observe effect confirms the existence of quark mass
9 June 2022
A phenomenon that directly proves the existence of quark mass has been observed for the first time in extremely energetic collisions of lead nuclei. A team of physicists working on the ALICE detector at the Large Hadron Collider can boast this spectacular achievement – the observation of the dead cone effect.