Optics in Schools

Posted on 20/12/201520/01/2016 by YM Webmaster

Optics in schools is an activity well established in our group. During the last year we performed numerous activities in Primary schools and also in High Schools. Our expertise allows us to make more efficient our work, due to that several schools asked us for new activities for the next year. Due to the geographical situation in our surroundings, it is very common for us to travel by car to the schools in the countryside. This is one of the drawbacks we want to solve next year by suggesting the performance of the activities in one place and arranging the activity with different schools at the same time.

As it was planned in the last grant application, we developed the activity in 4 main groups that are: Polarization, Light-matter interaction, Visual optics and Light Propagation. Moreover we started new lines and tried it in different schools, for example, we are working in a new block related with cameras and optical instruments, in this particular case, we want to show how a camera or a telescope works.

We noted in High Schools, a big interest from students about what’s going on when they reach the University and finish their degree. We are thinking about the performance of new talks about this issue.

In summary, we are very confident of our work in this particular activity. This activity was the first we made when the student Young Mind Section was created, and we hope to still work in this field. We are also considering several options to improve our performance and to make more intelligible the activities when we worked with kids. Also we want to be in touch with the professionals of the education and worked with them to improve our work.

Outreach toward school

Posted on 20/12/201520/01/2016 by YM Webmaster

We have selected for this activity enthusiastic students of secondary schools. We have divided this activity into two parts. Firstly, we have done simple experiments in physics to promote “nice learning” and also the informal divulgation of physics. In particular, we have build an electrical motor with students. An electric motor of DC type is a device useful in everyday life to control the direction of motor rotation. We tried to build such a type of device. Used materials were very simple. As an example, we have used a copper wire as a coil. Moreover, we have done experiments to let the students to explore the electromagnetic spectrum, also by means of UV light (with a Wood lamp) to let the students to appreciate and understand what it is hidden inside electronic cards, official documents, such as passports and money.
Secondly, we have organized guided tours to the laboratories of condensed matter physics of University of Calabria. Senior students described their experiences as Physics students at University of Calabria while providing an overview of the academic programs and facilities.
We have shown visiting students the laboratories of Surface Science, Vibrational Spectroscopy and Electronic Spectroscopy of the Department of Physics. We have also guided students to see the nanoindenter facility in the DIMEG Department and the Raman spectrometer at DIATIC. We have asked the collaboration of young researchers of visited labs to explain the students the most important concepts of their research work, in order to provide the students an idea about daily work as researchers. Simple experiments have been carried out in the presence of students (e.g. diffraction pattern and Raman spectrum). Students had the possibility to tune the energy in diffraction experiments to change the pattern.
The students did many questions and this could be taken as a valuable indicator of the degree of success of the whole outreach activity.
To gain awareness about EPS and SIF, we have invited students to join physical societies.
Finally, we mention that a snack was offered to participants (student+teachers) in each visit. We would like to acknowledge teachers for their kind collaboration.
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School for Young Physicists

Posted on 20/12/201520/01/2016 by YM Webmaster

For the sixth year, a monthly event has been taking place in the Department of Physics and Mathematics of the University of Latvia – it is the School for Young Physicists. Each time, around 200 high school students from all of Latvia gather to explore a topic of physics that is generally not discussed in the school curriculum.

The activities start with bachelor, masters or doctorate level students explaining the monthly topic in an entertaining manner in two popular lectures. The emphasis is placed on introducing the basic concepts in an easy to understand way, while also trying to expand on the subjects covered in school and giving real world examples.
Thereafter, the attendants are tasked to conduct an experiment that shows how things discussed in the lectures appear in reality. The experiments are designed to differ from those done in school physics lessons. For example, in a session about optical waves, the students measured the amount of pixels on their phone screens by using laser diffraction and later compared the results to the information available about their phone online.

Lastly, a professional in the area of the month’s subject is invited to give a more in depth story about how the topics discussed are relevant in his or her field of expertise. This shows students the different possible career prospects associated with natural and technical sciences as well as giving them some insight in more contemporary issues that people are dealing with in these fields.
Because the event lasts five hours, students take breaks after each activity, in which they can stretch their feet and refresh themselves with a cup of tea and the food provided. Every time we prepare various types of sandwiches with cheese, sausage, vegetables etc. and afterwards some cookies and chocolate.

A competitive spirit among the students is maintained by organizing contests and giving away prizes. After the popular lectures, tests are handed out to students. Their scores are gathered up and the best ones are awarded. Furthermore, a contest among schools is held, where the test scores of top students of that school are tallied up as well as points earned from completing home assignments given after each session. These home assignments usually involve exploring the topic discussed in everyday situations and filming it. At the end of the season, the school with the most points receives the honorable School Cup and the students some bigger prizes than the ones usually handed out.

In the past year, topics such as rotational mechanics, forensic science, biophysics and optics have been covered. Experimental highlights have been the aforementioned pixel measuring with light diffraction as well as solving a crime by inspecting a set up crime scene for clues. As for the professional lecturers, notable examples are a professional physicist working in forensics giving a lecture on his work and a high standing professor introducing high school students to the world of quantum physics.
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Optical tournament

Posted on 17/12/201511/01/2016 by YM Webmaster

Thanks to the IYL Young Minds Grant the GOC YM Section created an optical tournament where students from a High School enjoyed with the first contact with the light science. Public learned about general concepts of optics such as reflection, transmission, light guides, fluorescence and absorption and they did it in a funny way. More details and pictures can be found in the section webpage.

It was a succesful event that took place on Thursday 17th of Desember at the gym of the Torreblanca High School. We started at 8:30h in the morning and we finished at 15:00h and we performed the different games with more than 100 pupils of the High School.

As planned, the tournament consisted in different separated events where participants had to overcome different tests. The participants were organized in groups. Each group stayed 10 minutes at each stage. After this time, the groups had to rotate between all the different stages until each one has passed one time per stage. There was a minimum and maximum punctuation for each stage. Depending on the group performance they obtained a determinate number of points. At the end of the day, the group of students with a higher score received a christmas price.

Funds were used to buy the materials needed to perform the optical contest. We bought laser sources, mirrors, optical materials to build optical puzzles (polarizers, gratins, sensors), an smoking machine, metallic basis in order to build the optical golf and the laser maze. Also, some of the budget was spent in buying little prizes for the winners of the contest. At last, a little part of the budget was spent in the trip to the high-school in the area near our city in order to perform the contest.

Now that we have all activities prepared and all material we need, we will repeat the contest with the high schools that demand it and also in other context.

Cycle of seminars on plasmon research and plasmonic devices

Posted on 15/12/201515/01/2016 by YM Webmaster

The Calabria YM Section realized a cycle of seminars addressed to undergraduate students:

Two-dimensional materials from graphene to “beyond graphene” and their plasmonic modes (Prof. Anna Cupolillo with an introduction by prof. Gennaro Chiarello);
When plasmonics meet Terahertz technology (Dr. Antonio Politano).

The emergence of two-dimensional materials has been discussed. In particular, prof. Cupolillo introduced the groundbreaking impact of graphene on condensed-matter physics and the pitfalls of graphene-based devices. The necessity of going beyond graphene has been clarified. The attention was focused on phosphorene, also in consideration of the recent success of experiments carried out on our department on this material. After a detailed introduction on the two-dimensional atlas of advanced materials, plasmons have been introduced with their peculiarities in these materials.

In the seminar on Terahertz technology, the state of the art has been presented, with attention on the various aspects: the characteristics of the Terahertz radiation, the use of plasma waves to detect Terahertz radiation and the application in technology. It has been clarified that THz radiation has no endangering effects on human beings and enables higher contrast for “soft matter” than x-rays. The excitations of plasmons inside the active channel of nano-transistors devised for Terahertz detection has been introduced. The plasma-wave detection mechanism is just the most promising mechanism for introducing Terahertz technology in daily life.
Plasma-wave-based THz detectors open new possibilities of construction of real-time THz imaging systems. Most plastics, textiles and paper are nearly transparent for THz radiation. Therefore, further application fields are industrial quality inspection control, customs inspection and security screening of persons. Imaging experiments taken on 10 ms have been presented, to demonstrate the feasibility to use Terahertz photodetectors as body scanner, instead of the X-rays, which are ionizing radiation, which can be harmful for human health.
In general, particular attention has been dedicated to the attempt to improve the interaction with other departments. This is beneficial for our EPS-YM section, since we find a lot of interest toward two-dimensional materials from mechanical engineers in our university. We find different contact points with young researchers in nanomechanics.
Seminars have been attended by about 35 students, coming from Physics, Materials Science and Mechanical Engineering.
After the seminars, a discussion with students about the prospect of applied research on advanced materials has been done, under the coordination of prof. Chiarello, associate professor of Applied Physics.

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Optical Workshop

Posted on 09/12/201511/01/2016 by YM Webmaster

Each year University Jaume I (UJI) of Castellón celebrates the days of dissemination called “Connecta amb la Ciència” (means “Connect with the Science”). These days have the objective of publicize the courses and degrees offered by the scientific area of the UJI. People (teachers, postdocs, students…) working in several areas from the university go to many places around the region of Castellón and offer workshops about chemistry, videogames, optics and photonics, renewable energies, etc. and many high school students attend these workshops.
Taking advantage of the conference “Connecta amb la Ciència” the GOC members have travelled through different towns of the province to bring science to high school students.
We have prepared several micro workshops to show different physical properties and concepts related to optics (atmospheric scattering, refraction, diffraction on a CD, light absorption, polarization…) and also explain how works the human eye. In this way, students from all region have the opportunity to learn science by having fun.
We showed these workshops in 2014 and teachers from different high schools requested our workshops also for this year 2015 because the students enjoyed them. This year we have only visited the Puerto de Sagunto town (last 2nd March) and a high school near to the university (last 22nd April). However we have already planned visiting Morella (23rd October), Vinaroz (26th October), Sagunto (9th November), and Vila-Real (16th November). We have some new material for improve our explanations, so we hope students learn more and enjoy very much!

How does fundamental research work?

Posted on 08/12/201503/05/2016 by YM Webmaster

This year, the Erlangen MPL YM Section organized three school outreach events. On July 27 we had the first school outreach event with 23 students from the Gymnasium Fridericianum in Erlangen. This was followed by a similar event on August 20 with 18 students from different local schools. Finally, on December 8, we hold our school outreach event for 15 winners of the German youth science competition “Jugend forscht” who were visiting our home institute.
Many people are fascinated by and interested in fundamental research. However, only a few have a realistic picture of how science really works. With our school outreach events we want to convey a realistic picture of what it means to do fundamental research and why it is of importance. To do so, we first give an overview of the organization of our home institute, the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light, and then give an insight of our daily business as researchers. We answer questions like: How do researchers get new ideas? What steps are necessary to conduct an experiment? What problems do usually occur? How do researchers make other aware of their findings? We try to share our real-life experiences from our scientific work in the field of optics. This first part is followed by a demonstration experiment that relates to a current research topic in optics. Currently, we have set up an experiment to make single molecules visible. Another experiments let the audience experience actual quantum fluctuations. The experiment are accompanied by an interesting introduction to the physics involved and an explanation of the observations. In addition, we usually screen a short movie that explains (free-space continuous variable) quantum key distribution, a current research topic at our institute. Members of our chapter answer questions after the movie. When the school outreach event takes place at our home institute, we also offer the participants a tour through our labs.
By talking about a topic beyond the regular curriculum, we try to fascinate the high-school students and infect them with our passion for optics. Moreover, we emphasize the impact of optical technology in the present and future. In addition, we want to motivate young people to study science, in particular optics, and later on become part of the scientific community. Due to the personal experience of the presenters and the different styles of presentation during the events, we usually raise a lot of interest and questions among the audience. We plan to continue this successful series of school outreach events also in 2016.

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Science Conspiracy Mythbusters 2015

Posted on 01/12/201523/07/2016 by YM Webmaster

The principal motivation for Mythbusters project was to demonstrate that lots of widely spread information based on interpretation of various physical phenomena and technological advances
are misguiding and in many cases not even completely true.
But since most of these claims exploit the scientific terminology while using purely non-scientific methods, it may seem trustworthy. This confusion might lead to lowering the trust of scientific
work accuracy and moreover induce the panic among the general public.

In order to dispel these fears we prepared an informal seminar to discuss one of the popular video about the so-called connection between the research conducted at the Large Hadron Collider in
CERN and its consequences on increasing number of recent natural disasters, such as infamous earthquake in Nepal. The reason behind choosing topic of research in CERN is due to the fact,
that many of us do their study there.

During the seminar this particular video was screened, accompanied by our presentation about mentioned misused physical phenomena together with their correct explanation. For that reason,
we also prepared the subtitles both in Czech and English.

This event turned out to be quite popular among the audience, consisting mostly of young students of our faculty. It took place during the “Faculty Open Night” (November 2, 2015), an evening
where research done at our institution is presented among students and general public. We decided to repeat this screening three times during the evening due to the huge demand.

During each presentation, the conference room was fully occupied. In total, there was 75 participants which exceeded our initial expectations. According to the feed-back, students enjoyed
such activity and lots of them expressed the interest in similar screening. We are considering organising another screening focused on different topic.

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YM on the ICFONIANS, fall 2015

Posted on 26/11/201504/01/2016 by YM Webmaster

During the 5th YM Leadership Meeting the EPS president, Dr. Christophe Rossel was interviewed by the “ICFONIANS”, the community news from ICFO – The Institute of Photonic Sciences.

I am very happy about our EPS Young Minds which aims to increase the visibility of EPS among university physics students and also help young scientists to engage in outreach activity in their community.

What role do Young Minds (YM) play at EPS?

They are the future of our society; many of today’s stu- dents will be the professors of tomorrow and hopefully members of EPS! The networking that we can offer them is very important via workshops or conferences where they can meet senior scientists, and also learn to share their ideas and communicate. The YMs Program is a great opportunity for developing teamwork, crea- tivity and technical skills, communication, and research management. Today there are 34 sections in 19 coun- tries with over 500 members. The role of the EPS YMs is clearly outreach. Young people find it easier to lis- ten to other young people with similar concerns and to share their knowledge with family, friends and kids at school. YM helps to advise and search for young talents.

Read the complete interview here!

Scientific Cinema

Posted on 15/11/201504/01/2016 by YM Webmaster

The Erlangen MPL YM Section organized a social evening for a screening of the documentary feature “That’s the story”, which shows an interview with the Nobel laureate Prof. Roy J. Glauber about his time at the Manhattan Project.

Professor Glauber is the last living scientist from the theory division of the Manhatten Project at Los Alamos. In his interview he gives first-hand information on the daily life at Los Alomos, the scientific team there and its work, the test of the first nuclear weapon (Trinity test), the bombing of Japan and the political aftermath of the project. We invited Prof. Latorre, the producer of the documentary to the Max-Planck-Institute at November 13 to share the documentary with us. The screening was followed by an open discussion, for which we invited two experts from politic science and history. The first one was Wolfram Ridder from the institute of politic science at the FAU and the second one was PD Dr. Stephan Geier, who did his doctoral thesis about the nuclear weapons nonproliferation treaty. Stephan Geier is currently at the University of Warwick and therefore participated via skype. A lively and controversy discussion among the three invited guests as well as with the audience took place about ethic issues of science and the responsibility of scientists. After the discussion, we provided a buffet, where people had the opportunity to continue their discussion on the topic. The event was a great success as approximately 80 people were attending it.

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