Cristiano Matricardi, Christoph Hanske, Juan Luis Garcia-Pomar, Judith Langer, Agustín Mihi*, and Luis M. Liz-Marzán*. ACS Nano, Article ASAP. Publication Date (Web): August 14, 2018

On Thursday, 20 September, Dra. Nora Ventosa, researcher at the NANOMOL group at ICMAB, and member of the Catalan Society of Chemistry (SCQ) will participate in the event organized by the SCQ and the University of Girona (UdG) at the Science Building of the UdG: "New challenges in chemistry: nanovesicles and biologic control of pests" (Jornada sobre nous reptes en química: nanovesícules i control biològic de plagues). 

Alba Garzón-Manjón, Antonio Aranda-Ramos, Beatriz Melara-Benítez, Ikram Bensarghin, Josep Ros, Susagna Ricart*, and Carme Nogués*. Bioconjugate Chem., Article ASAP

Many ICMAB researchers from the Solid State Chemistry group are presenting their research on novel batteries configuations and electrochemistry at the 69th Annual Meeting of the International Society of Electrochemistry (ISE) that takes places in Bologna (Italy) from 2 to 7 September 2018. 

Dr. Lourdes Fàbrega, from the Institute of Materials Science of Barcelona (ICMAB-CSIC), leads the development in Spain of a special type of sensors that can detect very small changes in temperature and that will be used in the forthcoming European space missions.

These sensors are extremely sensitive and miniaturized microcalorimeters, like small thermometers, that can detect even the energy of one single photon.

The project "Las Científicas Cuentan" is an initiative of the CSIC Delegation in Brussels financed by the FECYT. The aim of the project is to bring basic science to the general public, through the story of women scientists who have been awarded with a ERC project during the past years. From the ICMAB, Marta Mas-Torrent (ERC-Starting Grant) and Teresa Puig (ERC-Advanced Grant) participate in the project.

The presentation will be on Wednesday, September 19 in Barcelona with a talk by Teresa Puig on superconducting materials (7 pm).

According to the Ranking Web of Research Centers, the ICMAB has the most visible website of all the CSIC research centers and units. In addition, the ICMAB website has raised to the 2nd position in the global ranking (in 2017 it was in the 4th place, and in 2016 in the 13th), from a total of 138. 

Following the provisional resolution of this year's Severo Ochoa Centers of Excellence call, there has been a hustle and bustle in the press and in the social networks regarding the criteria of excellence of the Severo Ochoa programme, and the fact that the ICIQ (Institute of Chemical Research of Catalonia) is not within the selected members. 

Closing date for applications: 28 August 2018.

Stefania Sandoval, Dejan Kepić, Ángel Pérez del Pino*, Enikö György, Andrés Gómez, Martin Pfannmoeller, Gustaaf Van Tendeloo, Belén Ballesteros*, and Gerard Tobias*. ACS Nano

Three ICMAB graduates have been awarded by the UAB with the PhD Extraordinary Award for their doctoral thesis, developed during the period 2015-2016: Justo Cabrera in the field of Chemistry, and María de la Mata Fernández and Manuel Souto in the field of Materials Science. The awards ceremony will take place on November 2018. Congratulations!

"Peter Grünberg was one of the first physicists to understand the potential of nascent nanotechnologies for fundamental research. He discovered giant magnetoresistance, or GMR: a large change in electrical resistance induced by a small magnetic field in stacks of ultrathin magnetic and non-magnetic layers." says Albert Fert* in Peter Grünberg's Obituary in Nature.

The Leibniz Institute for Solid State and Materials Research Dresden – in short IFW Dresden – wants to establish a new Junior Research Group in the field of applied superconductivity. The particular research focus for this group is open with the exception that it needs to be related to the application of unconventional superconductors (i.e. cuprates, Fe-based superconductors etc.) in any device or system.

Application deadline: August 30, 2018

The infrared beamline MIRAS at ALBA Synchrotron is organizing a 2-day hands-on Workshop on Infrared Microspectroscopy. The workshop will take place at ALBA light source (Cerdanyola del Vallès) on the 1st and 2nd October 2018. New Deadline for Registration: August 3, 2018!

This year the ICMAB counted with 7 out of the 34 fellowships for Master students that the CSIC distributed among the five Severo Ochoa Centres of Excellence of the CSIC (Instituto de Ciencias Matemáticas (ICMAT), Centro Nacional de Biotecnología (CNB), Instituto de Física Corpuscular (IFIC), Instituto de Neurociencias (IN) and Institut de Ciència de Materials de Barcelona (ICMAB); and the Structural Biology Unit of Excellence María de Maeztu. The 7 granted students will do their Master Thesis Project with one of our researchers during 5 months, and will receive 5,000 €. 

This year the ICMAB hosted seven (7) students from the program "Joves i Ciència" from Fundació Catalunya La Pedrera: Roger, Pilar, Antoni, Pere, Mariona, Anastasia and Arnau. They came to our Institute to do some research stays with some of our researchers, in the fields of spintronics, solar cells, superconducting materials, porous materials for energy, sustainable chemistry and crystallography. 

Dr. Ziliang Li defended his PhD thesis on "Growth and characterization of nanocomposite YBa₂Cu₃O_7-δ – BaMO₃ (M = Zr, Hf) thin films from colloidal solutions" on Thursday, 19 July 2018 at 12 pm. Congratulations Ziliang!!

María Soledad Martínez, Antonio Bauzá, Amparo Caubet, Ángel García-Raso, Ángel Terrón, Juan J. Fiol, Elies Molins, Miquel Barceló-Oliver and Antonio Frontera,*. Magnetochemistry 2018, 4(2), 24

Hi!
I’m Laia and I’m from Barcelona. I’m currently studying a degree in Physics at the UB. From July until September I will be doing an internship in the ICMAB analysing ferroelectric materials. I really like to learn new things, especially languages. It’s a good way to discover different cultures. I love to travel every time I can.

 

 

The ICMAB has been awarded by the CSIC with the Gender Equality Certificate (Distintivo de Acreditación en Igualdad de Género), in its first edition. This certificate was promoted by the CSIC President, Rosa Menéndez, following an explicit commitment to offer equal opportunities for men and women in their workplaces. The objective of the call was to promote gender perspective in all the CSIC institutes, and to promote measures to eliminate the barriers that women may encounter during their career. 

Hello everybody! My name is Josep Maria. I am currently studying the degree of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology. I am sharing a flat with other students in Cerdanyola del Vallès during the course but I am actually living in a small village called Vilajuïga, near Figueres. I love listening to music, playing paddel and watching films, as well. I will spend the whole summer at the SUMAN department of ICMAB experimenting with superconductors. See you soon!

 

Antonio Campos, Sergi Riera-Galindo, Joaquim Puigdollers, and Marta Mas-Torrent*. ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces, 2018, 10 (18), pp 15952–15961

The Seminars and Training Committee kindly invites you to the following ICMAB Invited Seminar: 

Engineering reaction-diffusion environments for chemistry and materials science

by Josep PUIGMARTÍ-LUIS, ETH Zürich

Wednesday, 18 July 2018 @ 12 pm
ICMAB - Sala d'Actes Carles Miravitlles

Hi everyone!
I'm Paula, I'm living in Barcelona but I'm from Alicante. I'm in the last year of nanoscience and nanotechnology degree at UAB. I will do my final research project at Nanostructered Materials Department (NANOPTENER). I like spending time with my friends, traveling, visiting art museums or galleries, doing sport and watching series or movies.
See you around!!

 

We transcribe here the article appeared in El País (7 Sept 2018) about the future of batteries for electric vehicles, written by Francesco Rodella, who interviewed Prof. Rosa Palacín, from the ICMAB, and other experts in the field:

J. Lyu, I. Fina, R. Solanas, J. Fontcuberta, and F. Sánchez. Appl. Phys. Lett. 113, 082902 (2018)

The group of Dr. José Vidal, in the NANOMOL group is looking for a "Posdoctoral Researcher in Radical Dendrimers as Contrast Agents for MRI". 
The appointment has an initial duration of 1 year, starting in Oct 2018. 

The activities of the successful candidate will focus on the synthesis and characterization of radical dendrimers and their study as paramagnetic contrast agent for Magnetic Resonance Imaging.

The PhD Researcher Bohores Villarejo from the Superconducting Materials and Large Scale Nanostructures (SUMAN) group will defend his PhD thesis on Friday, 14 September, at 11 am at ICMAB. 

The Seminars and Training Committee kindly invites you to the following ICMAB Invited Seminar: 

Functions from flaws: Devices that harness vacancies and deficiencies in oxide thin films

by Dr. Sharath SRIRAM,RMIT University, Australia

Wednesday, 12 September 2018 @ 10 am
ICMAB - Sala d'Actes Carles Miravitlles

The "Societat Catalana de Química" (SCQ-IEC) organizes every year the contest on the best research chemistry projects for secondary school students (Premis als Treballs de Recerca de Batxillerat dins l'Àmbit de la Química). The award for the finalist students is a two-week scientific internship in a Catalan research center or university during July 2018. 

Mathieu P. Lichtenstein, Nina M. Carretero, Estela Pérez, Marta Pulido-Salgado, Javier Mora—Vico, Carme Solà, Nieves Casañ-Pastor, Cristina Suñola. NeuroToxicology. Volume 68, September 2018. 

Jike Lyu, Saúl Estandía, Jaume Gazquez, Matthew F. Chisholm, Ignasi Fina, Nico Dix, Josep Fontcuberta, and Florencio Sánchez*. ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces, Article ASAP

Fanmao Liu, Ignasi Fina*, Guillaume Sauthier, Florencio Sánchez, Andrew M. Rappe, and Josep Fontcuberta. ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces 10, 28, 23968-23975 

Javier Herrero-Martín, Javier Ruiz-Fuertes, Thomas Bernert, Monika Koch-Müller, Eiken Haussühl, and José Luis García-Muñoz. Phys. Rev. B 97, 235129. 

The cross-disciplinary Quantum Engineering programme from Univ. Grenoble-Alpes and the Grenoble Quantum Engineering European COFUNDprogramme offers 7 PhD positions. They invite outstanding students to join their doctoral programmes, training the next generation of quantum engineers. 

The radio program "Luciérnagas" interviewed José Giner from the Inorganic Materials and Catalysis Group (LMI) to talk about the recent paper publised in Advanced Materials on the flexible materials that switch from nano-porous 3D to 2D structures in a reversible way. Listen to the interview in this post:

B. Mundet, J. Jareño, J. Gazquez, M. Varela, X. Obradors, and T. Puig. Phys. Rev. Materials 2, 063607 

Eduardo Pérez del Río, Marc Martinez Miguel, Jaume Veciana, Imma Ratera*, and Judith Guasch*. ACS Omega, 2018, 3 (5), pp 5273–5280. 

Continuing the Strategic Vision for the Severo Ochoa programme FUNMAT ("Smart FUNctional MATerials for social grand challenges"), the ICMAB opened the call for the third edition of the Frontier Interdisciplinary Projects (FIP) earlier this year 2018. Out of all the proposals submitted, 9 projects in different fields have been granted. 

Hi, my name is Toni and I'm from Lleida, a city near Barcelona. I'm a first of baccalaureate student and I want to study physics in Barcelona. I'm in the ICMAB learning crystallography and other physics subjects with the researcher Elies Molins during three weeks. I like to do judo and read, and I really love to be with my friends just having fun

 

Dr. Wenjie Qian defended her PhD thesis on "Preparation and processing of molecular materials with optoelectronic properties" on Tuesday, 17 July 2018 at 11 am. Congratulations Wenjie!

On July 17, 2018, the fourth edition of "Científiques a prop" (Getting closer to scientists) organized by AMIT-CAT took place with great success in La Monroe de la Filmo. This edition counted with the participation of Ana M. López-Periago, from the ICMAB, who became second in the audience award, with her talk on "CO₂: hero or villain?", in which she talked about the benefits of using supercritical CO₂ in the preparation of materials. 

Sergey Simonov, Leokadiya Zorina, Pawel Wzietek*, Antonio Rodríguez-Fortea, Enric Canadell*, Cécile Mézière, Guillaume Bastien, Cyprien Lemouchi, Miguel A. Garcia-Garibay*, and Patrick Batail*. Nano Lett., 2018, 18 (6), pp 3780–3784. 

I am Alfonso del Rey and I will be working in the Tech Transfer Unit, helping researchers in taking their technologies to the market. I have a molecular biology PhD and experience in the private sector. Before coming to ICMAB I was working as Technology Transfer Officer in a catalan research institute. As I use to work indoors, sitting in front of a computer or having meetings, in my spare time I try to get outdoors as much as possible enjoying my family

 

 

• A recent study demonstrates the feasibility of the electrochemical extraction of calcium from a metal oxide, which could be used as a cathode (positive electrode) for calcium batteries
• The study, published in Dalton Transactions, was carried out in collaboration with Toyota Motor Europe, which shares the patent

The Seminars and Training Committee kindly invites you to the following ICMAB Invited Seminar: 

Power applications: review of the past 30 years and future perspectives

by Pascal TIXADOR, Univ. Grenoble Alpes, CNRS, France

Tuesday, 24 July 2018 @ 12 pm
ICMAB - Sala d'Actes Carles Miravitlles

Open call (INCOMING) for 22 postdoctoral fellowships for researchers of all nationalities, to conduct a research project at accredited centres with the Severo Ochoa or María de Maeztu distinction of excellence, Institutos de Investigación Sanitaria Carlos III or units qualified as "excellent" or "exceptional" by the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia. Candidates must have resided in Spain less than 12 months in the last three years. Moreover, another open call (RETAINING) for 11 postdoctoral fellowships for researchers of all nationalities to carry out research at any university or research centre in Spain. In this case, candidates must have resided in Spain more than 12 months in the last three years. 

The ICMAB is a Severo Ochoa Cener of Excellence since 2016 and is happy to host postdoctoral fellows in this call! Please feel free to contact our researchers, they will be happy to answer your questions. You will find information on our research groups here: ICMAB Reserach Groups

Hi everyone! I'm Arnau and I'm an student from Maçanet de la Selva, near Girona. I'll be working at the ICMAB joining a project on crystallography tutored by Anna Crespi and Carlos Frontera, which I'm really enjoying. I love music and spend my time playing the piano and meeting my friends. Next year I'll start a degree on Human Biology and I couldn't be more excited about it!