Physics Department News
Hydo-osmotic effects in cells
Large, membrane bound organelles spontaneously assemble within living cells. Slow osmotic fluxes may play a role, driving instabilities that are very different from the classical Rayleigh form.
Calculating the Magnetic Anisotropy of Rare-Earth-Transition-Metal Ferrimagnets
A collaboration between theoretical and experimental physicists at Warwick has led to the development of a new computational approach to understanding magnetic measurements.
Photoelectric solar power revisited
A new solar power device similar to a thin double-glazed window has been developed by Gavin Bell (Nano Physics) and Yorck Ramachers (Particle Physics). The device uses inert gas instead of vacuum to transport electrical energy, and is based on the photoelectric effect rather than conventional photovoltaic materials. The idea has been published in the journal Joule [Bell, G. R. and Ramachers, Y. A., Joule (2017) DOI: 10.1016/j.joule.2017.11.007]. The key unknown is the photocathode material which must have highly optimised properties for the device to be efficient enough to compete with conventional photovoltaics. Possibilities include diamond thin films and special perovskite oxide materials.
Understanding gravity in the framework of quantum mechanics is one of the great challenges in modern physics. Along this line, a prime question is to find whether gravity is a quantum entity subject to the rules of quantum mechanics. It is fair to say that there are no feasible ideas yet to test the quantum coherent behaviour of gravity directly in a laboratory experiment. In a recent paper, Gavin Morley and colleagues introduce an idea for such a test based on the principle that two objects cannot be entangled without a quantum mediator.