Skip to content

News

Physics Highlights from 2017-18 Celebrated at Department Social

October 5, 2018
Highlights from the Physics Department’s accomplishments during the 2017-2018 academic year were celebrated at the fall Physics Department Social on October 5. Department Chair Ajay Gopinathan shared the following items: New faculty: Daniel Beller joined the department from Brown...

Triangles of Quantum Dots Create Controllable Current Circulation

September 20, 2018
Chih-Chun Chien, Michael Scheibner, and collaborators have discovered a simple setup exploiting the quantum nature of electrons and triangular geometry to induce spontaneous current circulation between three quantum dots, in a new paper published in Europhysics Letters. In contrast to...

Even in classical diffusive motion, topologically protected edge modes can be found

September 20, 2018
Classical analogs of solid state topological insulators, which support protected sound or light waves along their edges, are being realized in cutting-edge soft matter research. In a new paper published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Scienes, Kinjal Dasbiswas and collaborators...

Frustration and Compromise in Flocking Cells Produce New Migration Patterns

September 12, 2018
Even if some members of a goal-driven group don’t seem to work well with others — even if the whole group is extremely frustrated — the group can still compromise and find new ways to produce a successful outcome. This sounds like a political allegory, but it’s actually a...

UC Solar Awarded $1.1M Grant to Build Solar-Powered Water Purification Systems

July 16, 2018
UC Solar received a $1.1 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Energy Technologies Office (SETO) to develop solar-thermal desalination technologies that reduce the cost of creating fresh water from otherwise unusable waters such as seawater, brackish water and polluted water. UC...

Grad Programs Make U.S. News Rankings Debut

March 20, 2018
For the first time, UC Merced’s doctoral programs in the sciences have been ranked among the best in the nation, according to U.S. News & World Report’s 2019 edition of Best Graduate Schools. The School of Engineering celebrated its third appearance in the rankings, and this year...

Physics Students Win National Recognition

January 31, 2018
  Merced, California - The University of California Merced chapter of the Society of Physics Students (SPS) has won an Outstanding Chapter Award from the SPS National Office. This is the first time the chapter has been recognized for its excellence as a top-tier student-led physical...

Study: Quantum Vibrations Could Help Detect Nuclear Threats

November 15, 2017
National security and a beautifully resonant violin have found a surprising link — a classic experiment in acoustics, recently replicated at the quantum scale as part of a collaborative project on quantum-enhanced motion sensing. UC Merced Professor Michael Scheibner and U.S. Naval...

Students visit telescopes at Lick Observatory

October 6, 2017
UC Merced students visited Lick Observatory for a tour of the telescopes, lecture on the history of the site, and evening of observing through the historic 36-inch Great Refractor telescope. Prof. David Strubbe brought 14 students to see the site on Mt. Hamilton near San Jose, which is owned by the...

‘Genius’ Award Winner and TED Lecturer to Speak at UC Merced

September 20, 2017
On Sept. 22, MacArthur "Genius" Award winner and Stanford University bioengineering Professor Manu Prakash will deliver the keynote lecture at the first annual open house for UC Merced’s Center for Cellular and Biomolecular Machines (CCBM), a National Science Foundation Center of...

Pages