Editorial: EPWS, the voice of European Women Scientists

The European Platform of Women Scientists EPWS is an international, non-profit organisation that represents the needs, concerns, interests and aspirations of over 12,000 women scientists in Europe and beyond.

Signing for gender equality in physics research

To advance recruitment and career progression of female physicists and engineers, the directors of the four NWO physics research institutes the Netherlands, AMOLF, ARCNL, DIFFER and Nikhef, have signed Gender Equality Plans. The official ceremony took place on January 22^nd, 2018 at the start of the large Physics@Veldhoven conference in front of the physics community in the Netherlands. It kicked off a systematic approach to accelerate improving the gender balance in the national physics research institutes, leading to structural changes. By publicly signing the plans, the four institute directors emphasised their commitment to and the legitimacy of the agreed actions and measures for gender equality.

The European Physical Society 2018 EPS Condensed Matter Division Europhysics Prize

The 2018 EPS Condensed Matter Division Europhysics Prize is awarded to Lucio Braicovich and Giacomo Ghiringhelli for the development and scientific exploration of high-resolution Resonant Inelastic X-ray Scattering (RIXS). The Prize will be presented on Tuesday March 13^th, 2018, at the Awards Session of the 27^th General Conference of the EPS Condensed Matter Division, to be held in Berlin from 11^th to 16^th March 2018 together with the Spring Meeting of the Condensed Matter Division of the German Physical Society, DPG.

16th EPS Young Minds Action Committee meeting

The 16^th EPS Young Minds Action Committee meeting took place at CERN, close to Geneva (Switzerland) on 10^th of November 2017.

Surrounded by a fabulous landscape and immersed in the heart of the world of Particle Physics, the meeting started by welcoming two new Action Committee members: Imran Khan and Giorgio Nocerino.

EPL: Bart van Tiggelen is the new Editor-in-Chief

Bart van Tiggelen has been appointed as the new Editor-in-Chief of EPL, a global letters journal owned and published by a consortium of 17 national physical societies in Europe under the umbrella of the European Physical Society. He started his term in January 2018, taking over from Giorgio Benedek.

Scientists observe nanowires as they grow

At DESY’s X­ray source PETRA III, scientists have followed the growth of tiny wires of gallium arsenide live. Their observations reveal exact details of the growth process responsible for the evolving shape and crystal structure of the crystalline nanowires. The findings also provide new approaches to tailoring nanowires with desired properties for specific applications. The scientists, headed by Philipp Schroth of the University of Siegen and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), present their findings in the journal Nano Letters. The semiconductor gallium arsenide (GaAs) is widely used, for instance in infrared remote controls, the high­frequency components of mobile phones and for converting electrical signals into light for fibre optical transmission, as well as in solar panels for deployment in spacecraft.

Physics Students Worldwide volunteer for International Day of Light

The International Association of Physics Students (IAPS) is going to contribute to the UNESCO International Day of Light, organising new activities and participating with a delegation of volunteers in the IDL Flagship event at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris, France on 16 May 2018. Twenty-five physics students will meet in the French capital and it will be a truly international delegation, gathering students from seventeen different countries following the UNESCO and IAPS shared goals of integration and cooperation.

Exploring the energy frontier in particle physics

The desire to understand the elementary constituents of matter and their interactions has been one of the most important drivers of physics research. In the past 50 years, major progress in the field of particle physics has been made by accelerating particles to the highest energies available (the energy frontier) and by colliding them to produce and study new particles and interactions. Recent examples are the 1992 discovery of the top quark, by the Collider Detector at Fermilab (CDF) and D0 experiments, in the Tevatron collider at Fermilab; and the 2012 discovery of the Higgs boson, by the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) and A Toroidal LHC ApparatuS (ATLAS) experiments, in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN. These important discoveries, as well as many others, are the experimental foundations of the Standard Model (SM) of particle physics.

History of Physics Group conference: call for papers

In collaboration with the Donostia International Physics Center in Donostia-San Sebastian, the EPS interdivisional group for the History of physics will organise the 3^rd International Conference on the History of Physics under the auspices of the European Physical Society from 17–21 October 2018. This will be co-organised with the 4^th Early-Career Conference for Historians in the Physical Sciences of the American Institute of Physics hopefully allowing for a vigorous conference.

Open data in science: challenges and opportunities for Europe

The workshop ” Open data in science: challenges and opportunities for Europe ” took place on 31^st January 2018 in Brussels. Christophe Rossel, EPS vice-president, chaired the meeting. The workshop comprised eight presentations and a plenary discussion.

A complete summary of the day, as well as the presentations of the invited speakers, are available  on the Euro-ICSU website.

IBM Q Awards Contest Program

The IBM Q Awards are prizes for professors, lecturers and students who use the IBM Q Experience and QISKit in the classroom or for their research.

IUPAP Young Scientist Prize in Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics 2018: call for nominations

Nominations are sought for the Young Scientist Prize in Atomic, Molecular and Optical (AMO) Physics, which will be awarded in 2018 by the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics through Commission C15 (AMO Physics). The prize will be awarded during the 26th International Conference on Atomic Physics (ICAP) to be held from 22-27 July 2018 in Barcelona, Spain. The Prize includes a certificate, a medal, a EURO 1,000 award and an invited presentation at ICAP.