22 of the 81 Physics and Astronomy projects at ISEF 2026 won a Grand Award. Here's every one, with its abstract.
ISEF · 2026
Physics and Astronomy First Award
Efficient ion heating remains a major obstacle in magnetic fusion because radio-frequency waves often deposit too much of their energy into electrons rather than fuel ions. Existing ion-cycl…
ISEF · 2026
Physics and Astronomy First Award
Origami and linkages are widely used across architecture, space engineering, and the natural world owing to their high interconnectivity, where a single input drives the entire mechanism. Bo…
ISEF · 2026
Physics and Astronomy Second Award
Electromagnetic forces inside matter are fundamental in condensed matter physics but there are multiple theories that describe them and it is yet to be determined which theory is correct. Th…
ISEF · 2026
Physics and Astronomy Second Award
Prior to the first unambiguous discovery in 2011, circumbinary planets (CBPs), planets orbiting two stars or eclipsing binaries (EBs), were considered unlikely to exist due to the perturbati…
ISEF · 2026
Physics and Astronomy Second Award
Quantum computers encode information in qubits, which are susceptible to physical noise. To protect information, quantum systems use error correction codes like the surface code, detecting e…
ISEF · 2026
Physics and Astronomy Second Award
Neutrino oscillation measurements aim to find fundamental physics beyond the Standard Model, but precision is limited by our inability to distinguish genuine signals from interfering nuclear…
ISEF · 2026
Physics and Astronomy Third Award
The study of exocomets, cometary bodies orbiting stars beyond our solar system, is essential for understanding planetary disc formation and the origins of life. Unfortunately, exocomets are…
ISEF · 2026
Physics and Astronomy Third Award
Motion-induced quicksand, or secondary rheology, refers to the sinking of an object into dry sand fluidized by distant movement in the same granular medium. In granular environments like des…
ISEF · 2026
Physics and Astronomy Third Award
Wildfires pose significant threats to ecosystems and communities worldwide. While visible flames can be readily captured, the underlying thermofluidic processes governing atmospheric fire sp…
ISEF · 2026
Physics and Astronomy Third Award
Arterial stenosis, the narrowing of arteries by plaque buildup, is the primary cause of cardiovascular diseases. Diseased arteries often contain multiple or non-uniform stenoses, so clinical…
ISEF · 2026
Physics and Astronomy Third Award
Binary neutron star (BNS) mergers emit gravitational waves and eject neutron-rich matter, powering a short-lived infrared transient known as a kilonova. Immediately after the merger, the hyp…
ISEF · 2026
Physics and Astronomy Third Award
Current drug design methods treat proteins as rigid structures, failing to capture functional high-energy states. This contributes to 40–50% of clinical-stage drug failures. Mapping continuo…
ISEF · 2026
Physics and Astronomy Third Award
Freshwater scarcity affects over 50% of the current world population, making atmospheric water harvesting (AWH) an important field of research. This project utilizes mechanically exfoliated…
ISEF · 2026
Physics and Astronomy Fourth Award
Quantum computers promise computational advantages beyond classical limits. Although reported gate fidelities are high for modern devices, widely thought to indicate high performance, they d…
ISEF · 2026
Physics and Astronomy Fourth Award
Most traditional detection pipelines miss eclipsing binary (EB) stars because they look for transit-like dips and disregard signals that occur between eclipses, dismissing them as noise. Thi…
ISEF · 2026
Physics and Astronomy Fourth Award
Localized surface plasmons (LSPs) are collective oscillations of free electrons on metallic nanoparticles. By confining light into nanoscale volumes, LSPs generate strong electromagnetic nea…
ISEF · 2026
Physics and Astronomy Fourth Award
Diffractive sails are a novel aerospace propulsion concept that direct photon momentum through controlled diffraction. By electrically controlling how light is redirected as it passes throug…
ISEF · 2026
Physics and Astronomy Fourth Award
White dwarfs (WDs) are a unique window into the fate of planetary systems, but confirmed planets around WDs are rare and transit signals last only minutes, making them easy to miss in ground…
ISEF · 2026
Physics and Astronomy Fourth Award
The assembly of Brightest Cluster Galaxies (BCGs) is commonly attributed to hierarchical mergers at low redshift, yet the mechanisms governing their early-universe growth remain poorly quant…
ISEF · 2026
Physics and Astronomy Fourth Award
IC 4634 is a planetary nebula with a striking double-S shape, whose curved arcs and distant knots preserve a record of its outflow history. This study presents the first 3D morpho-kinematic…
ISEF · 2026
Physics and Astronomy Fourth Award
Gate-all-around (GAA) transistors are central to the development of next-generation 2 nm-node semiconductor technologies, but their operation is strongly governed by quantum confinement, req…
ISEF · 2026
Physics and Astronomy Fourth Award
Rare flavour-changing neutral current decays such as a B->Kmu+mu- are a sensitive probe of beyond Standard Model (SM) Physics. The angular observable P5' has exhibited a persistent deviation…