Department of Thin Films and Nanostructures

There are pieces of news that are hard to believe. This applies also to the one about the decease of Vláďa Cháb, who was known for his immeasurable vitality and sporting spirit. Unfortunately, his great scientific and sporting heart stopped on the night of March 5, 2023, at the age of 76. When I heard about a month ago that he was not in good health, I did not pay much attention to the news. I believed that there was no illness or obstacle that Vláďa’s spirit could not handle. Unfortunately, I was wrong.

Will we be left with high electricity bills and is the transmission network in the Czech Republic sufficiently dimensioned? Current topics of the last months became the subject of the Current and Future Energy workshop, which was organized in the Solid21 lecture hall on January 17 by the Institute of Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences, where research into renewable sources is running e.g. within the Pilatus project.

A multidisciplinary team of physicists and chemists from the Institute of Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences managed to create a graphene aerogel resistant to flames at a temperature of 1500 °C. A mere millimetre of the material is sufficient to shield such high temperatures. The new porous graphene aerogel temporarily resists various types of high-temperature flames, including an extremely reactive hydrogen flame

Today the Honorary Medals have been handed over by the president of the Czech Academy of Sciences Eva Zažímalová. The recipients were 11 researchers honoured for their long-lasting contribution to science by the Czech Academy of Sciences. The laureates included two researchers from the Institute of Physics, prof. Jiří Chýla, CSc. and prof. RNDr. Ivan Pelant, DrSc.

Coilgun, observation and processing of miner planet occultation using CMOS cameras or determination of the atomic structure of surfaces using ion scattering - these are the winning works in the field of physics of the 44th year of the national showcase of high school scientific activities. The students were presented their awards by the FZU director Michael Prouza and his deputy Antonín Fejfar.

Nataliya Kazachková lost both her university office and home. The bombing of Kharkiv turned her life upside down, but the tenacious scientist did not give up. Together with her parents and younger daughter she managed to leave Ukraine, and thanks to the programme of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic “Researchers at Risk Fellowships - Ukraine”, since April she has been working at the Institute of Physics.

Researchers from the Czech Academy of Sciences have patented an invention that might fix the problem with batteries catching on fire. The experimental high-voltage aqueous battery is based on dual-ion electrochemical reactions. The new battery provides a life-cycle of 500 discharge/charge cycles, and its capacity is comparable to that of the commercially available nickel-metal hydride batteries. But unlike them, the aqueous battery is made of extremely cheap materials.

This year, the Institute of Physics together with the Institute of Physical Engineering at the Brno University of Technology organized another of a series of international summer schools Physics at Nanoscale, again with the support of the International Union of Vacuum Sciences, Technologies and Applications (IUVSTA).

Ing. Jan Fait on Monday February 1, 2021, successfully defended his dissertation on the topic „Fabrication and characterization of diamond photonic structures“ under the guidance of the supervisor prof. Bohuslav Rezek from the Department of Physics, CTU and supervisor specialist Dr. Lukáš Ondič from the Institute of Physics of the CAS.

Michael Londesborough's borane show and Martin Ledinsky's non-Newtonian fluid has become, without precedent, the biggest hit of this year's neighbourhood festival called The Different City Experience. In addition to science popularization presentations, participants could sew a bag, play ping-pong or watch an evening laser show.