Thirty-three scientists, inventors, and entrepreneurs will have three minutes each to present their innovative idea in a rapid-fire competition to win a spot at the prestigious Falling Walls Lab Finale in Berlin.

Until now, optically active quantum dots have not been observed in materials consisting of a single layer of atom, also known as 2D materials. Rochester researchers have shown how the 2D material tungsten diselenide can be fashioned into an atomically thin semiconductor that serves as a platform for solid-state quantum dots.

The imaging system being developed at Rochester builds on work pioneered by David Williams, widely regarded as one of the world’s leading experts on human vision. Williams pioneered the use of adaptive optics technologies for vision applications.

Researchers in the Institute of Optics have shown that a microplasma created by focusing intense laser pulses in air emits not only visible light, but also electromagnetic pulses at terahertz frequencies that can be used to detect complex molecules, such as explosives and drugs.

Twenty-five years ago today, the Hubble Space Telescope was launched. The images it has been sending back to Earth for all these years have become iconic, and yet it came very close to being a billion dollar failure. One of the heroes who rescued Hubble from ruin and made it a great science success story is Rochester optics professor Duncan Moore.

At the end of March, 12 representatives from the University of Rochester spent three days at the University of Ghana in Accra, Ghana, exploring how the two universities could work together. The delegation laid the groundwork for undergraduate, graduate and faculty exchanges, public health fieldwork, and research partnerships.

Speaking in public is the top fear for many people. Now, students and faculty from the Human-Computer Interaction Group have developed an intelligent user interface for “smart glasses” that gives real-time feedback to the speaker on volume modulation and speaking rate, and have made the tool freely available for downloading.

The National Science Foundation has granted its most prestigious award in support of junior faculty, the Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program, to three University researchers: Antonio Badolato, Danielle Benoit, and Michael Neidig.

Some of the most energetic phenomena in the universe produce high-energy gamma rays, and a new observatory in Mexico aims to expand the catalog of known gamma ray sources.