Junichiro Kono tapped to lead Rice’s Smalley-Curl Institute
Rice University’s Junichiro Kono has assumed leadership of the Smalley-Curl Institute, named for Nobel Laureates Richard Smalley and Robert Curl ’54 and home to some of the world’s most accomplished researchers in nanoscience, quantum science and materials science.
Rice scholars to weigh in on last total solar eclipse in the U.S. for 20 years
Nationally recognized solar eclipse and solar power experts from Rice University are available to discuss the April 8 eclipse, which will be the last total solar eclipse in the U.S. for 20 years.
Rice nuclear physics team tapped to lead $15 million Large Hadron Collider upgrade project
A team of physicists at Rice University led by Wei Li has been awarded a five-year, $15.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Nuclear Physics, marking a significant leap forward in the realm of high-energy nuclear physics.
Rice’s Naomi Halas awarded Optica’s C.E.K. Mees Medal
Rice University’s Naomi Halas has been selected as the 2024 recipient of the C.E.K. Mees Medal by Optica for her “original use of optics across multiple fields.”
Astronomers find water vapor in distant star’s habitable zone
Rice University astronomer Andrea Isella and colleagues have reported the first observations of gaseous water in the portion of a protoplanetary disk where a rocky, Earth-like planet might be forming around a distant star.
Aluminum nanoparticles make tunable green catalysts
The Rice lab of nanotechnology pioneer Naomi Halas has uncovered a transformative approach to harnessing the catalytic power of aluminum nanoparticles by annealing them in various gas atmospheres at high temperatures.
Radiation from massive stars shapes nascent planetary systems
NASA has released the first stunning images of the Orion Nebula from the James Webb Space Telescope in a study in the journal Science that shows with unprecedented precision how massive stars impact the formation of planetary systems.
Rice physicist earns NSF CAREER Award to revolutionize quantum technology
Yonglong Xie, assistant professor of physics at Rice University, has been awarded a Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award from the National Science Foundation (NSF). The $888,555 grant over five years will support Xie’s research into harnessing magnons, quantum mechanical wavelike objects in magnetic materials, to create synthetic matter and develop next-generation quantum devices and sensors.
Rice scientists pull off quantum coup
Rice scientists have discovered a first-of-its-kind material, a 3D crystalline metal in which quantum correlations and the geometry of the crystal structure combine to frustrate the movement of electrons and lock them in place.
Rice research opens new arena to study quantum interactions
Rice scientists along with collaborators at Durham University prolonged quantum behavior in an experimental system nearly 30-fold by using ultracold temperatures and special laser wavelengths to generate a “magic trap” that delays the onset of quantum decoherence.
Disc around star observed in another galaxy for the first time
Astronomers have uncovered evidence of an extragalactic accretion disk for the first time.
Rice physicists launch extreme quantum materials symposium
An international audience of more than three dozen quantum researchers, including Rice’s Pengcheng Dai, Randall Hulet, Douglas Natelson, Han Pu, Ming Yi and Boris Yakobson, attended the Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellowship Symposium on Extreme Quantum Materials at Rice Nov. 9.
‘Strange metal’ is strangely quiet in noise experiment
Rice experiments have provided the first direct evidence that electricity seems to flow through “strange metals” in an unusual liquid-like form. The first “shot noise” experiments on a strange metal from the Vienna University of Technology (TU Wien) are detailed this week in Science by physicists from both universities.
Rice’s Naomi Halas wins Mildred Dresselhaus Prize
Naomi Halas, a pioneering researcher in the fields of nanophotonics and plasmonics at Rice University, has been awarded the 2024 Mildred Dresselhaus Prize for Nanoscience/Nanomaterials from the American Physical Society.
Rice’s Gustavo Scuseria wins Aneesur Rahman Prize
Pioneering computational chemist Gustavo Scuseria has won the 2024 Aneesur Rahman Prize for Computational Physics.
