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In the technology world, complex oxides are “wonder” materials that can have a wide array of electronic, magnetic and optical properties. As a result, they could enable next-generation electronics, data storage, sensing, energy technologies, biomedical devices, and many other applications.

Stacking ultrathin complex oxide single-crystal layers—or those composed of geometrically arranged atoms—allows researchers to create new heterostructures with hybrid properties and multiple functionalities. Now, a revolutionary platform developed by engineers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and MIT will enable researchers to achieve these stacks in virtually unlimited combinations.

The team, including physics Professor Mark Rzchowski and grad student Julian Irwin, published details of the advance in the Feb. 5, 2020, issue of the journal Nature.

Shine a laser pointer at a cat, and the cat may see and try to catch the light, but it certainly won’t feel it.

What if that light were not a milliwatt laser, but one hundred trillion times stronger — and the cat were essentially weightless, floating in space?

“Normally, optical forces are zero — you don’t feel light pushing on you. But with a very strong laser on a very light object, the forces start to be measurable and significant, and we are interested in studying those forces,” says Victor Brar, assistant professor of physics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. “A new idea called laser sailing is one area where these optical forces become relevant.”

Brar, with graduate student Joel Siegel and colleagues, conducted a set of simulations in which they show that a self-stabilizing laser sail is theoretically achievable, making it that much more feasible that a spacecraft will make it to neighboring star systems in our lifetime.

The inaugural MS in Physics–Quantum Computing is the first program of its kind in the U.S. It addresses an emerging workforce need by preparing students to enter this rapidly growing and highly complex field. Most of the students will complete their degrees August, and we checked in with them one semester into their studies.

Baha Balantekin, the Eugene P. Wigner Professor of Physics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, has been elected Speaker of the Council for the American Physics Society (APS). He will serve as Speaker-elect in 2020, Speaker in 2021, and Speaker Emeritus in 2022.

The APS Speaker of the Council presides over the Council, a body of elected leadership within the professional society. The Speaker also serves on the APS Board of Directors as well as presiding over the Council’s Steering Committee.