News

04.12.19: The antimatter interferometry experiment performed in our laboratory is one of the Top 10 Breakthrough 2019 (physicsword).  

03.05.19: First demonstration of antimatter wave interferometry

It is the first version made with antimatter of the single particle interference experiment proposed by A. Einstein in 1927 and R. Feynman, for one of his famous lectures, and realized with electrons in 1976 by Merli, Missiroli and Pozzi, and in 1989 by A. Tonomura et al. This work has appeared on Science Advances and was realized by a collaboration that includes the Positron Laboratory of the Politecnico di Milano L-NESS in Como, where the experiment was performed. The others participating institutions are INFN (Milan unit), Università degli Studi di Milano, Università di Napoli Federico II and AEC & LHEP of the University of Bern. This is the first step of the QUPLAS (QUantum interferometry and gravity with Positrons and LASers) program.

Animation based on actual data showing the buildup of the interference pattern

Brief description

    Italian (breve descrizione in italiano)

    Spanish (breve descripción en español)

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27.08.18: First observation of antimatter wave interference (preliminary version in arXiv)

        Some media that comment this preliminary version of the article (click to see details): 

19.08.18: It was submitted a Memorial Text of Alfredo Dupasquier to the American Institute of Physics, Conference  Proceedings of the 18th Internation Conference on Positron Annihilation (Orlando, USA). Alfredo Dupasquier was a member of the “positron community” over a period of some 5i0 years and made substantial contributions to the science in this community. Here is a brief history of the Alfredo’s life related to his scientific and human contribution. pdf

March 2nd 2015: The Positron Group has published (PNAS magazine) an advanced study on amorphous indium-gallium-zinc-oxide (IGZO) semiconductors in collaboration with the Group of Tobin Marks and Antonio Facchetti of the Northwestern University. In this work is demonstrated that the new coating technique, spray-combustion synthesis (SCS), produce IGZO films at low temperatures and for short times compared to the sputtering conventional technique. The properties of the IGZO films made by SCS, as thickness, densification, nanoporosity, electron mobility, trap densities and bias stress stability, are at the same level of the sputtered films. It also determines the conditions of density and porosity that allow films with a good performance.

Thin film transistors (TFT) IGZO has 50x higher electron mobility than amorphous silicon, which has often been used in displays (for smartphones, tablets, PCs, TVs, etc.). As a result, IGZO-TFT can improve the speed, resolution and size of flat-panel displays. It is thus considered to be one of the most promising TFT for use in organic light-emitting diode (OLED) displays.

28.07.14: The AEgIS collaboration at CERN has demonstrated a method to measure a very small deflection of an antimatter beam (smaller than the thickness of a human hair). The method has been tested by measuring the deviation of an antiproton beam (Nature Communications). The deviation is a consequence of a force (magnetic origin) of 500 attonewton (5x10-16 N) applied to the antiproton beam. The proposed instrument is a "moiré deflectometer". In future experiments, this method will be employed to measure the effect of Earth's gravity on antihydrogen, a force that is much smaller that the electromagnetic force measured here.

12.05.13: Antimateria Oridine  (Italian)

07.05.13: The Positron Group has published an advanced review on Meoporous Materials for antihydrogen production.  Chemical Society Reviews  Polimi

Hydrophobic mesoporous silica with open pores such as MCM-41 and aerogel show remarkable features for antihydrogen formation at low temperature.

25.04.13: Materiali porosi a Como; link La Provincia (Italian)

01.10.12: The Positron Group has published an advanced study on Hybrid Solar Cells in collaboration with the IIT (Italian Institute of Technology). Hybrid solar cells are a combination of organic and inorganic materials. This new generation of thin-film is based on a very favourable price/performance ratio and the possibility to manufacture flexible and large-area devices. Positron Annihilation Spectroscopy using a variable-energy positron beam has been employed for the first time in this field in order to obtain depth-resolved data to study the infiltration of a conductive polymer (P3HT) into a mesoporous skeleton of titania. It has been possible to understand the reason of the improvement the device performance by engineering the hybrid interface using an inexpensive and transparent interlayer (4-mercaptopyridine).

17.04.12: L-NESS presentation Franco Ciccacci (Italian: video)

16.03.12: The SiGe epitaxy group of L-NESS have made a Sience work on "Scaling Hetero-Epitaxy from Layers to Three-Dimensional Crystals" in collaboration with the ETH Zürich and Università di Milano-Bicocca. A photography of this work was selected for cover of Science.

15.10.11: Antimateria per studiare la materia  Unico-Lab  (Italian)

14.04.11: The Postron Annihilation Spectroscopy group featured in Così faremo volare davvero la nave di Star Trek da Como La Provincia  (Italian)

10.12.10: New Tandil link1

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