news 2022

A method known as quantum key distribution has long held the promise of communication security not possible in conventional cryptography. For the first time, an international team of scientists, including researchers from EPFL, has demonstrated experimentally an approach to quantum key distribution based on high-quality quantum entanglement - offering much broader security guarantees than previous schemes.

Scientists from EPFL and the WSL Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research SLF have gained deeper insight into how snow slab avalanches form, paving the way to more effective risk assessment measures for these catastrophic events that induce more avalanche accidents and fatalities every year than other types of avalanches.

Researchers at ETH Zurich have developed a method that enables time-resolved measurements of electron motion in water clusters lasting only a few attoseconds. The technique can be used for more detailed studies of water as well as faster electronics. Virtually all vital chemical processes take place in aqueous solutions.

Researchers at ETH Zurich have redetermined the gravitational constant G using a new measurement technique. Although there is still a large degree of uncertainty regarding this value, the new method offers great potential for testing one of the most fundamental laws of nature. The gravitational constant G determines the strength of gravity - the force that makes apples fall to the ground or pulls the Earth in its orbit around the sun.

Using a new method, scientists are better able to distinguish between mirror-image substances. This is important amongst others in drug development, because the two variants can cause completely different effects in the human body. Researchers from Paul Scherrer Institute PSI, EPF Lausanne (EPFL), and the University of Geneva describe the new method in the scientific journal Nature Photonics .

Geneva, 4 July 2022. Ten years ago, on July 4 2012, the ATLAS and CMS collaborations at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) announced the discovery of a new particle with features consistent with those of the Higgs boson predicted by the Standard Model of particle physics. The discovery was a landmark in the history of science and captured the world's attention.

Coordinated by the CSEM, the large European quantum project macQsimal, included in the FET Flagship on Quantum Technologies initiative, is nearing its end and reveals very promising results.

Communication networks need nodes at which information is processed or rerouted. Physicists at the University of Basel have now developed a network node for quantum communication networks that can store single photons in a vapor cell and pass them on later. In quantum communication networks, information is transmitted by single particles of light (photons).

At its heart, is mathematics an aesthetic discipline? Or what does it mean if someone finds a proof -beautiful- And what does mathematical beauty say about physical connections? To this day, mathematics includes beautiful facts that are also familiar to us in everyday life. The golden ratio, for example, has been revered since an­tiquity as representing the most aesthetically pleasing proportions.

Colours can be created in surprisingly different ways. And in addition to being pleasing to the eye, colour can also serve a useful purpose. -Asking why chocolate is brown is like asking why the sky is blue,- says Ralph Spolenak, Professor of Nanometallurgy in the Department of Materials at ETH Zurich.

Oil and gas prices are currently on the rise, raising questions about the security of Switzerland's energy supply. In a policy brief, researchers from the Energy Science Center at ETH Zurich have now shown what Switzerland can do to make its energy system independent of fossil fuels such as oil and natural gas.

Scientists have built a compact waveguide amplifier by successfully incorporating rare-earth ions into integrated photonic circuits. The device produces record output power compared to commercial fiber amplifiers, a first in the development of integrated photonics over the last decades. Erbium-doped fiber amplifiers (EDFAs) are devices that can provide gain to the optical signal power in optical fibers, often used in long-distance communication fiber optic cables and fiber-based lasers.

How the plates of the Earth's crust move depends largely on the behaviour of the rocks below them in the mantle. A new ETH study now shows that the grain size of these rocks is a key factor. The face of our planet is shaped by forces deep within its interior. These push the plates of the Earth's crust against each other, causing mountains and volcanoes to form along the collision zones.

Identical light particles (photons) are important for many technologies that are based on quantum physics. A team of researchers from Basel and Bochum has now produced identical photons with different quantum dots - an important step towards applications such as tap-proof communications and the quantum internet.

An international team led by astronomers from the UNIGE has succeeded in developing a model to solve part of the 'solar problem'. All was amiss with the Sun! In the early 2000s, a new set of data brought down the chemical abundances at the surface of the Sun, contradicting the values predicted by the standard models used by astrophysicists.

Researchers at ETH Zurich have succeeded for the first time in trapping excitons - quasiparticles consisting of negatively charged electrons and positively charged holes - in a semiconductor material using controllable electric fields. The new technique is important for creating single photon sources as well as for basic research.

Physicists at EPFL, within a large European collaboration, have revised one of the fundamental laws that has been foundational to plasma and fusion research for over three decades, even governing the design of megaprojects like ITER. The update shows that we can actually safely use more hydrogen fuel in fusion reactors, and therefore obtain more energy than previously thought.

Anyone who lives in an old building with wooden floors knows the problem: Even if the neighbors from above glide across the floor with graceful elegance, it sounds as if you were living under a bowling alley. Impact sound is a challenge even for the most modern wooden buildings. Scientists at Empa are now tinkering with a solution.

Very thin wires made of a topological insulator could enable highly stable qubits, the building blocks of future quantum computers. Scientists see a new result in topological insulator devices as an important step towards realizing the technology's potential. An international group of scientists have demonstrated that wires more than 100 times thinner than a human hair can act like a quantum one-way street for electrons when made of a peculiar material known as a topological insulator.

To get closer to quantum technology we need to develop non-classical light sources that can emit a single photon at a time and do so on demand.