Dr. Dingding Ren recently started his postdoc at the Optics Cluster at ImPhys, where he is supervised by Dr. Jian-Rong Gao, to develop novel flat lens systems using a meta-surface for the detectors/arrays working in the submm and THz wavelengths.

Disentangling the complex nerve fibre network of the brain is becoming easily accessible with scattered light imaging (SLI): researchers in Delft, Jülich (Germany) and Stanford (USA) successfully combined light and X-ray scattering with MRI to discern nerve fibre trajectories, also in regions with highly entangled fibres. SLI revealed the trajectories at highest detail, while being significantly faster and cheaper than X-ray and MRI techniques. Such detailed mapping is essential for a better understanding of how nerve fibres are wired inside the brain.

Mark Vermeulen's Master end project consists of looking at T2Rho relaxation mapping MRI. The hope is that this will eventually reduce the need for contrast agents in cardiac MRI. He is conducting his project in the MARS Lab under supervision of Chiara Coletti and Sebastian Weingärtner.

Enya Berrevoets recently started her PhD at the computational imaging group, where she will be supervised by Sjoerd Stallinga and Bernd Rieger. Her research will take place within the IMAGINE! (Innovative Microscopy and Guidance of cells In their Native Environment) consortium and will be focused on computational imaging solutions for visualising cells and subcellular structures in 3D and at high resolution.

In April 2023, Minister of Education, Culture and Science Robbert Dijkgraaf officially opened the renovated Electron Microscopy Centre (EMC) in Utrecht. In what used to be a somewhat disjointed field of science, the EMC provides a hub where researchers from all the relevant disciplines have access to the expensive equipment for electron microscopy. This significant development is the result of the intensive efforts of the Perspectief consortium Microscopy Valley, with Delft University of Technology as one of the parties.

The paper: “Voltage imaging with engineered proton-pumping Rhodopsins: Insights from the proton transfer pathway” by Xin Meng and Vidya Ganapathy et al has been selected to be featured as an ACS Editors' Choice in addition to being published in ACS Physical Chemistry Au. The paper has been selected for this honor because of its potential for broad public interest.

How do we get pupils interested in science, and especially physics? One way is to develop lessons that are relevant to them. Freek Pols published an article for physics teachers in which the physics of Spiderman is investigated.

Similar in function to ballast tanks in submarines or fish bladders, many water-based bacteria use gas vesicles to regulate their floatability. In a publication in Cell, scientists from TU Delft now describe the molecular structure of these vesicles for the first time. These gas vesicles were also recently repurposed as contrast agents for ultrasound imaging.

Dr. Hamed Abbasi joined ImPhys as Postdoc. He will explore clinical applications of computational scattered light imaging under the supervision of Dr. Miriam Menzel.

Yutong Wang joined ImPhys on February 15th. He will work on 3D super-resolution microscopy under the supervision of Prof. Sjoerd Stallinga and Prof. Bernd Rieger.