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Working with bacteria, a multidisciplinary team at the University of California San Diego has provided new insight into a longstanding question in science: What are the underlying mechanisms that control the size of cells? Nearly five years ago a team led by Suckjoon Jun, a biophysicist at UC San Diego, discovered that cell size is controlled by a fundamental process known as “the adder,” a function that guides cells to grow by a fixed added size from birth to division. Yet mysteries remained about th...

Researchers Unravel Mechanisms that Control Cell Size

One second after the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago an abundance of invisible subatomic particles was released from the hot plasma that filled the universe, forming what scientists call the cosmic neutrino background. These neutrinos pass through great distances in matter without being impacted, yet they influence the enormous distances between galaxies. Now a team of international scientists, including researchers from UC San Diego, has produced a measurement that adds to the understanding of the universe within a second of its creation. T...

Scientists Confirm Events that Occurred One Second after the Big Bang

You’re invited! Join us to celebrate the opening of the Quantum Materials for Energy Efficient Neuromorphic Computing center, headquartered here at UCSD Physics!! Date: Friday, January 25 Time: 10:00 – 11:00 a.m. Location: Natural Sciences Building Auditorium, First Floor PLEASE RSVP: https://qmeenc-reception.eventbrite.com Refreshments: delicious ones! Part of the U. S. Department of Energy’s “...

Quantum Materials for Energy Efficient Neuromorphic Computing, Q-MEEN-C Kick Off Event

Fred Kavli Auditorium, Tata Building, Revelle College, UC San Diego 9:00 am – Introduction Melvin Okamura (UC San Diego, emeritus) 9:30 am – Bioenergetics Overview by M arilyn Gunner (CUNY) Richard Debus (UC Riverside) From the bacterial reaction centers to O2 evolution in photosystem II Peter Brzezinski (Stockholm) Supramolecular interactions in the mitochondrial respiratory chain Ana and Thomas Moore (ASU) Proton-coupled electron...

George Feher: Commemorating a life in biophysics Feher Fest Memorial Symposium, Friday, 5 October 2018

Bird and glider in tandem flight. Photo montage courtesy of Phil Richardson, © Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution The words “fly like an eagle” are famously part of a song, but they may also be words that make some scientists scratch their heads. Especially when it comes to soaring birds like eagles, falcons and hawks, who seem to ascend to great heights over hills, canyons and mountain tops with ease. Scientists realize that upward currents of warm air assist the birds in their flight, but they don’t know ...

Physicists Train Robotic Gliders to Soar like Birds

Many of our modern devices—from cell phones to electric cars—depend on charged batteries to operate. But when battery voltage fades, so does the amount of energy a battery can hold. This fading is especially problematic for certain lithium-rich cathode materials used to power things like electric cars; how the fading occurs isn’t well understood. To help remedy the problem, a team of UC San Diego researchers applied heat and X-ray imaging differently to demonstrate for the first time the origins of voltage fade. I...

UC San Diego Researchers Charge Quest to End ‘Voltage Fade’

Currently, information-processing tools like computers and cell phones rely on electron charge to operate. A team of UC San Diego physicists, however, seeks alternative systems of faster, more energy-efficient signal processing. They do this by using “excitons,” electrically neutral quasiparticles that exist in insulators, semiconductors and in some liquids. And their latest study of excitonic spin dynamics shows functional promise for our future devices. In their research, Professor Leonid Butov and recent physics PhD ...

Physicists Practice ‘Spin Control’ to Improve Information Processing

To begin to understand the field of plasmonics, picture the rich colors of stained glass windows in Gothic cathedrals or the pixelation of a digital photo on a laptop screen. In some way, shape or form these are plasmons on display. Basically, plasmons are traveling waves of rippling electrons that can be excited in plasmas, metals or semiconductors. They lie at the heart of plasmonics. In such systems, plasmons bunch up and spread out as a group, enhancing and manipulating electromagnetic energy and concentrating optical...

‘Gold Standard’ Research Presents Promise for Plasmonic Devices

As if taken from a Star Wars or Star Trek movie script, the term “exciton” (pronounced ˈek-sə-tän) comes from condensed matter physics. Excitons are bound states of electrons and electron holes attracted to each other by electrostatic force. They can be created both by light and transformed into light. Electrically neutral, these quasiparticles exist in systems like insulators and semiconductors, but University of California San Diego physicists have established a way that may bring them into future cell phones and laptops.

Physicists’ Room-Temperature Research Leads to ‘Exciting’ Possibilities for Science

University of California San Diego condensed matter physicists noticed something surprising about electrons—they behave like a family. Electrons not only carry electric charge as exhibited in electric currents, but they also possess spins which are responsible for quantum magnetic properties. Electron spins can organize, bond and interact. When excited, one spiraling part impacts the others. This dynamic spin was the subject of breakthrough research by UC San Diego Professor Congjun Wu, physics graduate student Wang Yang, for...

UC San Diego Physicists Apply Pencil, Paper and Sociology to Breakthrough Research