Together with UC Berkeley we are announcing the laser phase plate - a breakthrough in atomic resolution imaging. This is the brightest continuous wave laser in the world, 100 million times the intensity of the surface of the sun. Phase contrast plays an important role in microscopy, but it was thought close to impossible for electron microscopy, where it would require interfering with an electron beam. Holger Mueller and Robert Glaeser proposed exactly this using a standing wave laser. It has taken over 15 years to make this a reality. Biohub partnered with UC Berkeley and Mueller to support this work and to engineer and build the technology. Contrast has been the critical barrier to achieving atomic resolution imaging of the cell. In cryo-electron tomography, a cellular imaging technology that uses electron microscopy, the low contrast makes it impossible to resolve anything but the largest proteins within their cellular context. The laser phase plate removes that barrier. With advances in AI this breakthrough in contrast will start to open up a new frontier in structural biology, that will allow us to see the molecular machines of the cell, and how they assemble into far more complex and dynamic systems, and understand how they work.

Cryoelectron microscopy revolutionized drug discovery, providing the protein structures needed to design new drugs. A breakthrough in cryo-EM by a @UCBerkeley physicist produces much greater contrast, allowing the study of even smaller proteins news.berkeley.edu/2026/06/11… @biohub

Berkeley Physics has Open Positions for lecturers: Summer Sessions Lecturer aprecruit.berkeley.edu/JPF05… Lecturer Pool - Physics (Fall 2026/Spring 2027) aprecruit.berkeley.edu/JPF04…

Berkeley researchers have developed a more accurate way to predict semiconductor band gaps, improving our understanding of how temperature affects electronic and optical materials. physics.aps.org/articles/v19…

Congratulations to Benjamin Safdi, recipient of the 2026 David Blackwell Award honoring outstanding scholarship, teaching, and service at UC Berkeley. ls.berkeley.edu/news/uc-berk…

Berkeley researchers are using advanced MOSAIC microscopes and AI to capture living systems in extraordinary detail — generating petabytes of biological data from cells, molecules, and embryos. news.berkeley.edu/2026/05/22…

Congrats to new Gruber Cosmology Prize winners, including Alex Filippenko @UCBerkeley news.berkeley.edu/2026/05/19…

Congratulations to Berkeley Physics’ Naomi Ginsberg on receiving a Brown Investigator Award! physics.berkeley.edu/news/na…

Reminder: Wednesday, May 6: Basic Science Lights the Way presents Astronomy's Newest Discovery Machine: The Vera Rubin Observatory. events.berkeley.edu/physics/…

Berkeley Physics is pleased to announce that Kam-Biu Luk has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences. He is one of six Berkeley researchers to be elected for 2026. news.berkeley.edu/2026/04/30…

Cal Day in Physics was a big success! Visit our Cal Day web page and check out photos from the day's events. physics.berkeley.edu/news/ca…

4/27 Condensed Matter Seminar with Shuolong Yang: Engineering quantum materials in space & time—new ways to design and control topological states for future technologies. events.berkeley.edu/physics/…

4/27 Physics Colloquium with Ehud Altman: Machine learning quantum measurements = new insights into entanglement—and the limits of prediction. 4:15 PM In #1 Physics North events.berkeley.edu/physics/…

Professor Raphael Bousso has been elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences as a member of the 2026 class. 👏 physics.berkeley.edu/news/ra…

Watch the 2026 Oppenheimer Lecture featuring Ignacio Cirac: Quantum Simulation in the Presence of Errors: youtube.com/watch?v=kqHPHONa…

Congrats to Berkeley Physics’ Ben Safdi, honored with a New Horizons Prize for groundbreaking work on axions and dark matter. breakthroughprize.org/News/9…

Last chance to order your Berkeley Physics tee shirts, zip hoodies, and caps! Store closes 4/21 at 8:00 am. stores.inksoft.com/UC_Berkel…

April 20 Colloquium with Professor Mike Crommie: Imaging the freezing & melting of electrons in 2D Wigner crystals—finally visualizing a 90 year-old quantum prediction. events.berkeley.edu/physics/…

April 20 the Condensed Matter Seminar features Gil Refael, CIT. This lecture explores a new approach to building and stabilizing GKP qubits—offering powerful possibilities for quantum error correction and computation. events.berkeley.edu/physics/…

Basic Science Lights the Way will present "Astronomy's Newest Discovery Machine: The Vera Rubin Observatory. This discussion will include scientists from Astronomy and Physics. Register below. basicscience.berkeley.edu/