Department of Physics

NJIT Launches A Potent Research Hub: The Institute for Space Weather Sciences

Wednesday, November 28, 2018
Both on land and in space, Earth’s technology-centered civilization is increasingly vulnerable to the powerful bursts of electromagnetic radiation, energetic charged particles and magnetized plasma known as space weather. As the complexity of engineered systems increases, as new technologies are invented and deployed, and as humans venture ever further beyond Earth’s surface, both human-built systems and humans themselves become more susceptible to the effects of the planet’s space environment. It is with these vulnerabilities in mind – and in response to urgent calls from government...

Physicist Ken Chin Wins an Edison Patent Award for Next-Generation Solar Cell Technology

Friday, November 2, 2018
Physicist Ken Chin, a scientist, author and inventor, received a Thomas Alva Edison Patent Award last night from the Research & Development Council of New Jersey for his work on a promising new method for advancing sustainable energy production: next-generation solar cells. Chin focuses on improving the performance and efficiency of thin-film solar cells based on cadmium telluride (CdTe), which are potentially a lower-cost alternative to silicon because they require fewer natural resources to produce electricity and take up much less space on buildings. “What we’re interested in is...

Distinguished Professor of Physics Awarded for Research on Solar Flares

Friday, October 12, 2018

TEDxNJIT Event on November 8

Tuesday, October 9, 2018
New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) will host a TEDxNJIT event Nov. 8, 2018 in the Jim Wise Theatre on the NJIT campus and via an accompanying live simulcast available to viewers worldwide. The independently organized event, licensed by TED, is themed “ReFraming” and will feature leaders from business, academia and the arts addressing a range of topics. Speakers will explore assumptions that limit solutions to social problems and broadening perspectives to find new opportunities for cross cutting approaches. They will cover a range of disciplines including arts,...

A Neurobiologist, a Solar Physicist and a Chemical Engineer Are Awarded for Research Excellence

Friday, October 5, 2018
Faced with a formidable list of nominees for the annual Excellence in Research Prize and Medal, the Board of Overseers opted this year for its own brand of novelty and innovation: the prize committee picked three. The sector-spanning winners, all at the forefront of their fields, included a solar physicist, a chemical engineer and a neurobiologist. Dale Gary, distinguished professor of physics in NJIT’s Center for Solar-Terrestrial Research, was awarded for his groundbreaking research on solar flares and for the creation of a radio telescope, composed of 15 antennas spread out over two...

Research Lives! Undergraduates Take on Neurotoxins, Cave Disasters and Other Challenges

Monday, August 13, 2018
A robotic fleet built to penetrate dark and narrow cave passages, cellular studies into alcohol’s role in hastening neurodegeneration in people with HIV, plants that absorb pernicious pollutants from the air and new methods for eliminating noise from data searches are a few of the research projects that drew students back to campus laboratories this summer. The students themselves are just as diverse: a team of physics, engineering and industrial design majors from NJIT; a group of eight international students from Kolkata, India’s Heritage Institute of Technology; an aspiring neurosurgeon...

60+ Educators, 24 Campers and 1 Astronaut: A Special NJIT Pre-College Day

Friday, July 27, 2018
July 19 was an especially busy day for NJIT’s Center for Pre-College Programs (CPCP). Not only was CPCP overseeing its various summer offerings taking place across campus, it was also welcoming educators in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) to a special forum that intertwined a bit with students attending the annual Bernard Harris Summer STEM Camp (BHSSC). Before the forum’s keynote speaker and camp namesake Dr. Bernard Harris — a former astronaut, CEO of the National Math and Science Initiative (NMSI) and CPCP Advisory Board member — stepped up to the podium, a foursome...

NJIT-Led Research Team Records Blazing-Fast Changes of Metal Nanofilms

Tuesday, July 24, 2018
Traditionally, many engineers and developers of solar cell technology have turned to crystalline silicon — a tried and tested material absorber capable of efficiently converting solar radiation to electricity at just four times the thickness of a strand of hair. At up to a 100th the thickness of a hair strand, nano-thin metal films offer an even more cost-effective and flexible material alternative, holding promise in the future development of everything from solar power to sensor technology.  However, metal nanofilms are currently more complicated to use as material...

New Instruments and Funding Expand Views of the Sun at Big Bear

Wednesday, June 27, 2018
A solar telescope that captures images of the entire disk of the Sun, monitoring eruptions taking place simultaneously in different magnetic fields in both the photosphere and chromosphere, is now installed beside the Goode Solar Telescope (GST) at NJIT’s California-based Big Bear Solar Observatory (BBSO). The telescope, SOLIS (Synoptic Optical Long-term Investigations of the Sun), collects images from three separate instruments over years and even decades, rather than minutes or hours, giving scientists a comprehensive view of solar activity such as flares and coronal mass...

Author and Artist Michael Benson On Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey", and Fusing Science and Art

Monday, June 11, 2018
In 1964, legendary director Stanley Kubrick met with legendary science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke to embark on one of the most ambitious films ever made — “2001: A Space Odyssey”.  In a 141-minute cinematic spectacle that would take four years to produce, the two artists uniquely blended aspects of science and art to create a groundbreaking futuristic mythology that is still studied in film schools and debated by global audiences today. Half a century later, contemporary writer, filmmaker and artist Michael Benson, has authored a new and critically acclaimed account of...

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