The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) experiments are currently gathering massive amounts of data to study the Standard Model and search for new physics that could unlock the secrets of matter and interactions. In a few years, the upcoming high-luminosity LHC phase will deploy upgraded detectors of unparalleled precision, allowing us to collect data that is at least 10 times larger than our current...
25 years ago, Sensirion was founded by Moritz Lechner and me as a spin-off company of ETH Zurich. What started with two physicists and two measurement parameters is today a company that employs more than 1'200 people worldwide (700 of them in Switzerland). Around 100 of the employees originally studied physics. Today we offer around 15 sensor families which have many different variants...
Hadron collisions at large accelerators have proven amazingly efficient in exploring the elementary particles and their interactions. The first important milestone was the discovery at CERN in 1984 of the W and Z bosons, mediators of the electroweak interaction. Then in 1995 the TeVatron, at Chicago, found the last known constituent of matter: the top quark. Finally at CERN, after a long...
Function and properties of electrified interfaces are controlled by a complex and concerted competition of specific and unspecific interaction of reactive surfaces with ions and water in an electrolyte. For instance, the local interface structure determines transition state barriers for electrocatalytic reactions and controls electron transfer from a surface toward a solution species, or vice...
Photonic nanostructures can vary in their degree of local order and their optical appearance is the result of light interacting with these materials. Insects are interesting due to their large diversity of colored displays and associated nanostructures. Here, we will show recent results focussing on weevils and longhorn beetles that all display vivid colors and rely on varying degrees of...
This thesis ranges within the vast framework of experimental condensed matter physics, producing results on several different systems and their characteristic physical phenomena, which are collected and presented here in a structuralist perspective. In fact, we show how, in solid condensed matter, the underlying arrangement of atoms, the symmetry of their structure, and their mutual...
Quantum gravity attempts to fuse insights from quantum physics, which has so successfully contributed to our understanding of the constitution of matter, and from general relativity, our best theory of gravitation. This is necessary in order to describe the physics of black holes and the very early universe. Such a theory is of great interest to the philosopher of nature: the conceptions of...
In the talk an overview will be given of experiments which led from single particle interference to quantum entanglement. That finally led to realizations of basic primitives of quantum information. In the end I will present my arguments for quantum states as representations of logical propositions.
Since their first identification in 1921, long-lived nuclear excited states, known as isomers, have held promise for realization of compact energy storage as they can hold these excitations for millions of years and beyond, also surpassing the age of the Universe; however, a process that could efficiently exploit their potential has yet to be discovered.
We explore and propose several...
One of the goals of school education is to familiarize the younger generation with basic facts about climate and climate change, and to stimulate their independent thinking about these issues. For physics teachers, this is not an easy task and raises numerous didactic questions. After all, phenomena and concepts needed in order to explain why the earth is warming (such als thermal radiation,...
Laser pulses are an intriguing tool for driving non-adiabatic processes at surfaces. Amongst others, they may be utilized for tailoring adsorbed molecules or the surfaces themselves with the aim of custom-made properties that cannot be achieved under equilibrium conditions. We advance the microscopic understanding of the fundamental steps involved in such processes and the details of the...
CERN is one of the oldest European intergovernmental organisations. In summer 1953, the final draft of the CERN Convention was agreed upon and it laid out the ways its Member States would contribute, as well as its commitment to the dissemination of the research results, international peaceful collaboration, and the education of the scientists of tomorrow.
From Mach’s first definition of the...
