Imagine flipping a dial to make a material behave like a perfect conductor, a complete blocker, or something intriguingly in-between that could help us to better understand the puzzling quantum world. That’s the idea behind a new study in Physical Review Letters, co-authored by FZU researcher Filip Křížek within an international collaboration.
The team led by Hana Lísalová from the Optics Section of the Institute of Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences, in collaboration with scientists from the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics at Charles University, used surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) and a molecular probe to map hidden defects in polymer nanobrushes and demonstrated how these defects can be prevented in the future.
On Tuesday, October 7, 2025, a joint conference of the Institute of Physics (FZU) and the Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry (IOCB) of the Academy of Sciences took place. Its aim was to find potentially interesting topics on which to build long-term cooperation between the two institutes of the Academy of Sciences.
A recent study published in Advanced Science unveils a groundbreaking approach to designing responsive materials by manipulating atomic vibrations.
A team led by Zdeněk Farka from Masaryk University in Brno, in collaboration with Hana Lísalová's team from the Division of Optics of the Institute of Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences, is looking for new ways to faster and more effective evaluation of the so-called phage therapies, which could offer an alternative to traditional antibiotics.
Two Cherenkov telescopes help us understand extreme cosmic phenomena through very high-energy gamma rays; they are currently the most sensitive devices of their kind in the world. The prototypes, which were developed by an international team involving Czech scientists, are now in Ondřejov. This is an exceptional opportunity for Czech astrophysicists, as the telescopes may be moved abroad in the future.
Thomas Gouder’s life's work at the European Commission's Joint Research Centre in Karlsruhe (JRC) is a state-of-the-art modular system for surface science. The instrument, used for cutting-edge research on nuclear fuel safety, corrosion, catalysis, and actinide chemistry, has served scientists from all over Europe, including teams from Prague. What is it used for, and what lies ahead for its future?
A team of physicists from Czech research institutions shows how shaped light fields can steer ultrafast processes inside solids with remarkable precision.
The world's leading mineralogist Jakub Plášil has been unravelling complex crystal structures and discovering new minerals for years. At first glance, it might seem that this is a marginal area of science that is not "in vogue" today. Yet Plášil and his colleagues are making discoveries that have broader implications – for example, in understanding how uranium and other metallic elements are distributed in nature. His research has won him an award by the European Mineralogical Union.
