Two projects involving Polish research teams awarded in the 5th edition of the QuantERA call.

In the call for international research projects in quantum technologies, organized by the QuantERA network (Research Funders for Quantum Technologies) and coordinated by the National Science Centre, 39 winning projects were selected from among 287 submitted proposals, including 7 involving researchers from Poland. Two projects will be carried out with the participation of researchers from the Faculty of Physics at the University of Warsaw:
Dr. hab. Jan Chwedeńczuk, Professor at the University of Warsaw, from the Department of Quantum and Atomic Optics at the Institute of Theoretical Physics, will carry out the INTEGRA project — New Methods in Matter-Wave Interferometry in Atomic Traps — in cooperation with teams from Austria, France, Germany, and Italy;
Dr. hab. Michał Karpiński from the Division of Optics at the Institute of Experimental Physics will carry out the QUICFIRE project — QUantum Internet Components in all-FIbre REalisation for low-loss entanglement distribution — in cooperation with teams from Austria and the United Kingdom.|More

An excellent showing by the University of Warsaw Faculty of Physics team in the 18th edition of the International Physicists’ Tournament.

The International Physicists’ Tournament is a prestigious international team competition for physics students. This year’s edition, held from 26 to 30 May 2026 at Oklahoma State University, brought together 20 teams from around the world. Poland was represented by a team from the Faculty of Physics, University of Warsaw.

The team delivered a very strong performance, advancing to the semi-finals and placing 8th in the overall ranking. Members of the team also achieved individual distinctions: Adam Gocel received the award for the best presentation outside the main competition. At the same time, Paweł Ptaszek earned the highest score of the entire Tournament for his opposition to the solution of one of the competition problems.| Więcej

Analog Astronaut Conference 2026

Members of the University of Warsaw Geophysics Student Association took part in the Analog Astronaut Conference 2026, held from 30 April to 3 May 2026 in Arizona, USA. The event was organised at Biosphere 2, the world’s largest and most advanced analog habitat. It brought together scientists, engineers, analog astronauts, and representatives of the space sector from many countries. | More

Laser tornado in a synthetic magnetic field

Can light behave like a whirlwind? It turns out it can – and such “optical tornadoes” have now been created in an extremely small structure by scientists from the Faculty of Physics at the University of Warsaw, the Military University of Technology, and the Institut Pascal CNRS at Université Clermont Auvergne. This discovery opens a new pathway for creating miniature light sources with complex structures, potentially enabling the development of simpler and more scalable photonic devices in the future, for applications such as optical communication and quantum technologies.| More

Light trapped in a layer thousands of times thinner than a sheet of paper

Scientists from the Faculty of Physics at the University of Warsaw, in collaboration with research groups from the Łódź University of Technology, the Warsaw University of Technology, and the Polish Academy of Sciences, have developed a structure that traps infrared light in a layer just 40 nanometers thick. To achieve this, they created a structure called a subwavelength grating using a special material – molybdenum diselenide (MoSe₂). They published their results in the prestigious journal “ACS Nano”.| More

Rydberg-atom detector conquers a new spectral frontier

A team from the Faculty of Physics and the Centre for Quantum Optical Technologies at the Centre of New Technologies, University of Warsaw has developed a new method for measuring elusive terahertz signals using a "quantum antenna." The authors of the work utilized a novel setup for radio wave detection with Rydberg atoms to not only detect but also precisely calibrate a so-called frequency comb in the terahertz band. This band was until recently a white spot in the electromagnetic spectrum, and the solution described in the prestigious journal Optica paves the way for ultrasensitive spectroscopy and a new generation of quantum sensors operating at room temperature.| More

Drip by drip: The hidden blueprint for stalagmite growth

Deep inside caves, water dripping from the ceiling creates one of nature’s most iconic formations: stalagmites. These pillars of calcite, ranging from centimeters to many meters in height, rise from the cave floor as drip after drip of mineral-rich water deposits a tiny layer of stone. Beyond their beauty - echoed in fanciful nicknames like the “Minaret” or the “Wedding Cake” – stalagmites are also natural archives, recording ancient climatic changes in their layered growth, much like tree rings. But what determines the shape of a stalagmite? Why do some grow into slender cones, others into massive columns, and still others into curious flat-topped forms? A new study by researchers from Poland, the USA, and Slovenia, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), provides the first complete mathematical description of stalagmite shapes.| More

A scientist from the University of Warsaw’s Faculty of Physics will head a new MAB Centre of Excellence

One of the four selected projects is the Centre of Excellence for Structured Optical Fibres and Applications (SOWA), which will be established at the Faculty of Physics of the University of Warsaw. The new unit will be headed by Professor Ryszard Buczyński, Deputy Director of the Institute of Geophysics at the Faculty of Physics, University of Warsaw. Under the MAB FENG programme, support is provided for the creation or development of specialized, world-leading research teams capable of achieving scientific excellence and international competitiveness. The total amount of funding awarded in this call reached nearly PLN 120 million. Out of 23 submitted proposals, four projects were selected for funding – three to be implemented in Warsaw and one in Poznań.| More

Amplifying collective light emission with atomic interactions

A team of physicists from the Faculty of Physics at the University of Warsaw, the Centre for New Technologies at the University of Warsaw (Poland), and Emory University (Atlanta, USA) analysed how atoms’ mutual interactions change the way they collectively interact with light. In a paper just published in Physical Review Letters, the researchers extend established models of this phenomenon. By showing that direct atom-atom interactions can strengthen a collective burst of light known as superradiance, the team points to new opportunities for quantum technologies.| More

Next-Generation Quantum Communication

In the era of instant data exchange and growing risks of cyberattacks, scientists are seeking secure methods of transmitting information. One promising solution is quantum cryptography – a quantum technology that uses single photons to establish encryption keys. A team from the Faculty of Physics at the University of Warsaw has developed and tested in urban infrastructure a novel system for quantum key distribution (QKD). The system employs so-called high-dimensional encoding. The proposed setup is simpler to build and scale than existing solutions, while being based on a phenomenon known to physicists for nearly two centuries – the Talbot effect. The research results have been published in prestigious journals: “Optica Quantum”, “Optica”, and “Physical Review Applied”. | More

Making the invisible visible: a new way to boost light emission at the nanoscale

Light still holds surprises – as demonstrated by researchers from the Ultrafast Phenomena Lab at the Faculty of Physics, University of Warsaw, in collaboration with the Institute of Low Temperature and Structure Research, Polish Academy of Sciences, who have discovered a new enhancement effect in the emission of upconverting nanoparticles. They demonstrated that simultaneous excitation of these nanostructures with two near-infrared beams of laser light leads to a significant increase in emission intensity. Under carefully chosen conditions, visible emission emerges only when both beams are applied together, even though neither beam alone produces any emission at all. This discovery paves the way for visualizing infrared radiation beyond the sensitivity range of standard detectors. The findings, potentially applicable in microscopy and photonic technologies, have been published in the prestigious journal “ACS Nano”. | More

New photonic platform developed by Polish research team

A team of researchers from the Faculty of Physics at the University of Warsaw, the Military University of Technology, and the Institut Pascal at Université Clermont Auvergne has developed a novel method for using cholesteric liquid crystals in optical microcavities. The platform created by the researchers enables the formation and dynamic tuning of photonic crystals with integrated spin-orbit coupling (SOC) and controlled laser emission. The results of this groundbreaking research have been published in the renowned journal “Laser & Photonics Reviews”. | More

Quantum control of collisions beyond ultralow temperatures

At ultracold temperatures, interatomic collisions are relatively simple, and their outcome can be controlled using a magnetic field. However, research by scientists led by Prof. Michal Tomza from the Faculty of Physics of the University of Warsaw and prof. Roee Ozeri from the Weizmann Institute of Science shows that this is also possible at higher temperatures. The scientists published their observations in the scientific journal “Science Advances”. | More