What's New@Physics
It was reported that Assistant Professor Özyilmaz Barbaros from the Department of Physics at the NUS Faculty of Science and researchers from Sungkyunkwan University in Suwon, South Korea worked together to develop a simple, more permanent strategy for boosting graphene’s conductance.
By laminating grapheme with a fluoropolymer layer, they have made flexible, transparent and highly conductive films. The films could find use as the transparent electrodes needed in organic light-emitting diodes, solar cells, and displays. Currently, electronics manufacturers use expensive indium tin oxide (ITO) to make transparent electrodes.
With this development, graphene, a transparent and electrically conductive single layer of carbon atoms, could be a lower-cost alternative.
In a series of publications, Assoc/Prof Yan Jie and his team recently made several significant breakthroughs in resolving this debate, confirming the existence of S-DNA. They demonstrated that the overstretching transition produces both types of structural reorganization, depending on minor changes in the physiological environmental conditions. The PNAS paper was published online.
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It was reported that a team of physicists from the Centre for Computational Science and Engineering of the NUS Faculty of Science and China’s Zhejiang University have devised a new method for handling the effect of the interplay between vibrations and electrons on electronic transport. The study could have implications for quantum computers due to improvements in the transport of discrete amounts of information, known as qubits, that are encoded in electrons. It was also mentioned that their paper is about to be published in The European Physical Journal B.
A similar report was carried in Physorg.com Online (3 April 2012).
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Congratulations to Prof Thirumalai Venkatesan who was recently won the prestigious APS George E. Pake Prize 2012 for his exemplary scientific career in research, industrial leadership, and guidance of new generations of physicists in the creation new ventures by innovation.
The Department of Physics, Faculty of Science, National University of Singapore (NUS), invites Astrophysicists to apply for teaching-track faculty positions at Lecturer level. Preference will be given to outstanding applicants who specialize in the Large Scale Structures of the Universe, Cosmological Many-body Problem, Galaxy Clustering, Merging and Evolution, Practical Astronomy and Telescopic & Observatory Instrumentation.
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Congratulations to Wang Xiao who was recently awarded a prestigious Rubicon Grant. His proposal "Nanoscale Oxide Electronics" has won a 2-year grant to study his postdoctoral research in University of Twente (The Netherlands). An alphabet list of awarded grants in this round could be found in the link here. Currently he is a PHD student in NUSNNI-Nanocore under Asst/Prof Ariando and Prof. T. Venkatesan supervision.
In recognition of his contributions to theoretical/computational studies of nanomaterials, Dr. Zhang Chun was awarded the "Outstanding Lectureship Award" by the Chemical Society of Japan (CSJ) at the 92nd annual meeting of the Chemical Society of Japan (CSJ) held in Keio University from March 26 to 29, 2012. Dr. Zhang was a keynote speaker at the conference. Seven other young researchers (approximately under 40) in different fields of chemistry from the Asian Pacific region also received the award for their cutting-edge research in their own fields. The award includes a cash prize of 100K JPY and a one-year free pass for the electronic version of the Bulletin of Chemical Society of Japan and Chemistry Letters published by CSJ.
The award will definitely help to increase the impact of Dr. Zhang’s work (in particular, his recent work on catalytic activity of graphene-based catalysis) in the chemical society of Japan as well as in the world.
Congratulations to Asst/Prof Andrew Anthony Bettiol, A/Prof Sow Chorng Haur, Prof Chowdari, B VR, Dr. M.V. Reddy and A/Prof Peter Ho who have mentored the following winning school projects at the recent Singapore Science and Engineering Fair (SSEF) 2012. We also wish to thank the many other mentors who have put in considerable time and effort to mentor our SMP, SRP and SCIENTIA students. The Faculty appreciates the effort and encourages all staff to participate in these programmes to inspire our school students to do science.
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Congratulations to Mr. Liu Zhiqi for winning the “Best Poster Award” in the 5th MRS-S Conference on Advanced Materials, Singapore, March 20 - 22, 2012. Currently he is a PHD student in NUSNNI-Nanocore under Asst/Prof Ariando and Prof. T. Venkatesan supervision.
More than 180 physics researchers from across Singapore gathered at the NUS Faculty of Science for the annual meeting of the Institute of Physics Singapore (IPS), 23-24 February. With plenty of talks and poster presentations, the IPS Meeting 2012 provided an excellent opportunity to strengthen ties in the local physics community. Participants came from NUS, the Nanyang Technological University and the A*STAR research
institutes. Also offering a small, vibrant trade fair, the IPS Meeting 2012 provided plenty of networking opportunities.
NUS is proud to have hosted the meeting.
CQT participated 16-20 February in one of the world's most significant gatherings in science — the Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). The interdisciplinary meeting attracts a global group of leading scientists, policy-makers and the media, as well as many members of the public.
A prize launched by the NUS Department of Physics will recognise students for their excellence in experimental physics. The Department hopes that the Arthur Rajaratnam Prize will motivate more students to continue their pursuit of physics. Click here for more information about the prize.