Applied Physics

Inner ear has a need for speed

Rice bioengineers and applied physicists, together with and colleagues at the University of Chicago and the University of Illinois Chicago, have unlocked the mechanism of the fastest synapses in the human body. A previously hidden mechanism in the inner ear that helps mammals balance via the fastest-known signal in the brain, and researchers from Rice University, the University of Chicago and the University of Illinois Chicago have modeled a hidden mechanism in the inner ear that helps mammals balance via the fastest-known signal in the brain.

Rice wins Moore Foundation grant for quantum vacuum research

Junichiro Kono’s lab will study how matter and quantum vacuums become entangled thanks to a new grant from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.

Record 17 Rice University graduate students named GEM Fellows

A record 17 graduate students at Rice University have been named 2022 Fellows of the National Graduate Education for Minorities Consortium.

Smalley-Curl Institute rewards students’ summer research

The Smalley-Curl Institute held its annual Summer Research Colloquium Aug. 5.

Halas, Nordlander win prestigious Eni Energy Transition Award

Rice’s Naomi Halas and Peter Nordlander have won the prestigious 2022 Eni Energy Transition Award.

Rice ‘metalens’ could disrupt vacuum UV market

Rice photonics researchers have created a potentially disruptive technology for the ultraviolet optics market.

NSF awards 38 Graduate Research Fellowships to Rice students

The National Science Foundation has awarded 38 Graduate Research Fellowships to Rice University students.

Strong magnets put new twist on phonons

Phonons, quasiparticles in a crystal lattice that are usually hard to control by external fields, can be manipulated by a magnetic field -- but it takes a very strong magnet.

Rice’s Technology Development Fund backs faculty projects

Nine projects proposed by Rice researchers have been granted seed funding by Creative Ventures' Technology Development Fund.

Ultrathin solar cells get a boost

Rice University engineers boost the efficiency while retaining the toughness of solar cells made of two-dimensional perovskites.

3D camera earns its stripes at Rice

The Hyperspectral Stripe Projector captures spectroscopic and 3D imaging data.

Pristine quantum criticality found

U.S. and Austrian physicists searching for evidence of quantum criticality in topological materials have found one of the most pristine examples yet observed.

Sheets of carbon nanotubes come in a rainbow of colors

Nanomaterials researchers in Finland, the United States and China have created a color atlas for 466 unique varieties of single-walled carbon nanotubes.

Rice physicist shares grant to advance imaging

The lab of physicist Junichiro Kono will share in a $1 million grant from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative to improve imaging of proteins, cells and tissues.

A trillion turns of light nets terahertz polarized bytes

Nanophotonics researchers at Rice University, the Polytechnic University of Milan and the Italian Institute of Technology have demonstrated a novel technique for modulating light at terahertz frequencies with plasmonic metasurfaces.