Recent research

A Year of Celebration for Dr. Rajibul Islam: Quantum Innovations, Teaching Excellence, and Philanthropic Efforts on a Global Scale

The Department of Physics & Astronomy is proud to congratulate Dr. Rajibul Islam on his election as Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS), a prestigious recognition reserved for those who make groundbreaking contributions to physics and science education. In addition to this prestigious recognition, Dr. Islam was awarded the Excellence in Science Teaching Award for his innovative and inspiring approach to teaching quantum mechanics and optics.

New Tales of Our Cosmic Origins

Exploring Competing Origin Stories with the Author of Battle of the Big Bang

The Entangler recently had the opportunity to talk with Niayesh Afshordi, author of the upcoming book Battle of the Big Bang, a compelling exploration of competing cosmological origin stories.

LumeNeuro: Pioneering Early and Affordable Detection of Neurodegenerative Diseases

LumeNeuro is gaining widespread attention across the world! The Alzheimer’s Association and MATTER (a premier healthcare incubator and innovation hub) started an annual pitch competition a couple of years ago – a place where startups and entrepreneurs compete to showcase their solutions, this year for increasing access to quality, person-centered care for underserved people living with Alzheimer’s disease.

Waterloo, Wavicles, and the Weakest bond!

One thing you may miss about hanging out in UWaterloo Physics is a chance to have great physics conversations with friends. Well, two alumni want to share the fun of one of their conversations with you! Their bavardage focuses on the question: can 2 helium atoms bind together to exist as a molecule?

Breakthrough imaging technique offers non-invasive early detection of corneal diseases

Our eyes guide us through the world and allow us to see the beauty around us. Unfortunately, degenerative vision loss is a reality of aging for many people.

Quantum computing one ion at a time

A quantum computer uses the properties of superposition and interference to solve problems that are impossible with the computers and smartphones of today. However, building a quantum computer is an enormous physical and engineering challenge. In building a quantum computer, the first thing one needs to decide on is which quantum system, or “qubit”, is it going to use?

New quantum tool developed in groundbreaking experimental achievement

For the first time in history, scientists have created a device that recreates the properties of light using neutrons: the neutral subatomic particles found in the nucleus of an atom. This breakthrough provides a new modified platform for researchers to study the development of next-generation quantum materials with applications ranging from quantum computing to identifying and solving new problems in fundamental and applied physics.

Hybrid Quantum Computers

Today, researchers dream of future quantum computers discovering better materials, creating new medicines, solving complicated equations, and more. The quantum computers of today are still in their infancy; few qubits can be controlled at a time to which few quantum gates can be applied. What can be done while we wait?

Newly Discovered Optical Methods Shine Light on the Retina of the Eye and the Brain

Professor Campbell’s group works in a relatively new research field called biophotonics which applies recent discoveries in optics to the diagnosis and treatment of human diseases. Her group uses biophotonics to improve both imaging of the eye and the diagnosis of diseases of the eye and brain, including Alzheimer’s disease.

Searching for quantum effects in neuroscience

What is consciousness and why does it disappear when we sleep? Has the brain found ways to harness quantum mechanics for information processing? And if so, can we mimic the pertinent biological processes in the quantum realm? Unravelling fundamental quantum effects in the field of quantum biology may provide groundbreaking advancement in knowledge, provide insight into long standing puzzles in biology and may guide the development of novel quantum technologies.

Machine learning to empower quantum information processing

Scientists at the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Waterloo and the Perimeter Institute Quantum Intelligence Laboratory (PIQuIL) are combining two powerful research tools – machine learning and quantum information processing — to solve problems that are hard and sometimes intractable on classical computers. A major goal is to make an efficient quantum information processor for experimentally simulating quantum many-particle systems.

Pivoting research in the face of pandemic

Dr. Afshordi has a comprehensive and ambitious research program which spans a wide area, ranging from astrophysics and cosmology to fundamental physics, and includes a diverse spectrum of observational, numerical, and analytic components. When novel coronavirus began to sweep the globe, he turned his analytic eye from correlating fundamental physics to observational results to focus on analyzing the spread of COVID-19 around the world.

The first image of a dark matter web that connects galaxies

Waterloo researchers have captured the first composite image of a dark matter bridge that confirms the Universe is tied together by a cosmic web.

What Makes Physics Education Successful?

New faculty member Dr. Karen Cummings has spent her career researching the most effective methods of University-level physics education.

Dr. Michel Gingras: What We Can Learn from Frustrated Magnets

In the field of frustrated quantum magnetism, there are no textbooks. At least not yet. Dr. Michel Gingras, a leading physicist in the field of theoretical condensed matter, is engaged in a search for quantum magnets. That search has led him to study "spin ice", a magnetic material that has atomic magnetic moments as elementary degrees of freedom that are subject to "frustrated" interactions. Learn more about Dr. Gingras, spin ice, and what the future of theoretical condensed matter physics might hold.

Designing quantum computers to tackle fundamental questions of particle physics

Christine Muschik, Department of Physics & Astronomy and IQC

Professor Christine Muschik came to the University of Waterloo in November 2017 as an assistant professor to join the Department of Physics and Astronomy and the Institute for Quantum Computing (IQC) where she is leading the field of quantum simulations for high- energy particle physics.

Observing the Acceleration of the Expanding Universe

Dr. Will Percival, the department’s Distinguished Chair in Astrophysics, is a relatively new arrival at the University, where he is building a team to study one of the most challenging problems in contemporary physics —understanding why Universe’s expansion is currently accelerating. In order to do this work, Dr. Percival's team works with new technologies, technologies that the team hopes will lead to a revolution in our understanding of dark energy.

Artificial intelligence teaches itself to solve gnarly quantum challenges

Rather than battle it out to obsolescence, new research shows how quantum and classical systems can evolve together.

Avery Broderick: looking at a black hole

The first ever image of a black hole has been obtained, and our faculty member Avery Broderick took a decisive part in it

Alzheimer's disease: one lipid bilayer at a time

Dr. Zoya Leonenko and her research group are using atomic force microscopy to study neuronal membranes, producing results that suggest the mechanisms that trigger Alzheimer's Disease.

Telltales of frustrated interactions

In a recent Nature Communications paper, Gingras and collaborators exposed in a spin ice material — a system in which the microscopic atomic magnetic moments experience frustrated interactions, and closely mimic the behaviour of the protons in common water ice — an heretofore unnoticed analogy with classical gases.