During the Science Week 2019, in November, six of our researchers brought scientific research closer to the young students aged 15-17 years old within the framework of the programme "A researcher in your classroom". They went to five different highschools and gave a talk to the students, who had the opportunity to learn more about nanoscience and nanotechnology and about what is it like to be a scientist.

Clara Viñas and Francesc Teixidor were in Sfax (Tunisia), where they gave Plenary Talks at the Fourth International Conference of Engineering Sciences for Biology and Medicine (ESBM 2019) and celebrated the opening of the new school year of the "École supérieure polytechnique internationale privée de Sfax-ESPIN" as partner professors. 

The GoNano project organizes the winter school "Creating Social Value with Nanotechnology" on 4-7 February 2020 in Barcelona. The winter school is designed to impart the findings from the project to early stage researchers and to address concepts such as RRI, co-creation, and communication applied to nanotechnology. Deadline for registration is 30 November! Register now before it's too late!

Using statistical mechanics to build a Bayesian machine scientist

by Roger Guimera, ICREA Research Professor, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Tarragona

Monday, 25 November 2019 @ 12 pm
ICMAB - Sala d'Actes Carles Miravitlles

Doctor Yu Chen from the Laboratory of Multifunctional Thin Films and Complex Structures (MULFOX) Group at ICMAB defended his PhD thesis on Thursday, 14 November 2019 at the ICMAB. His thesis "Artificial Synapses based on the Photoconductance of LaAlO₃/SrTiO₃ Quantum Wells" was supervised by Gervasi Herranz. Congratulations! Continue reading to know more about Yu Chen!

M. Rosa Palacín and Alexandre Ponrouch, from the Solid State Chemistry Group at the ICMAB, are co-authors of a review on "Achievements, Challenges, and Prospects of Calcium Batteries" in a special issue about "Beyond Li ion batteries" of Chemical Reviews (ACS). Congratulations!

Martí Gibert, PhD researcher at the NANOPTO group, participated on Friday, 8 November 2019, on the YouTube Science Truck programme, in which the main topic was Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, and the invited scientific youtuber was Anna Morales (Size Matters), who is working on her PhD in Switzerland. Martí talked about Organic Solar Cells and Nanostructures! You can listen him from minute 53:24 to minute 1:02. Well done, Martí!

The Superconducting Materials and Large Scale Nanostructures (SUMAN) group offers in the framework of the ERC-Advanced Grant "Ultrasupertape" and ERC-Proof-of-Concept "Impact" a Postdoctoral Position to work in the industrially manufacturing process for high temperature superconducting coated conductors. Apply for it!

The new edition of the scientific photography contest FOTCIENCIA is now open! The aim of this initiative, organised by the CSIC and the FECYT, is to bring science and technology closer to society. The participants have until 16 December 2019 to send their photographies! Good luck!

Hola! My name is Filipe Correia. I am a Metallurgist with a minor in physics from the very North of Portugal. As a PhD student at the University of Minho, my goal is to increase the thermoelectrics properties of some Transparent conductive oxides. At ICMAB, I will be working with the Nanopto group, measuring thermal conductivity of doped ZnO and TiO2 thin films. I enjoy hiking, swimming and of course playing football. I am very happy to be here, see you around!

Creating Connections, Creating Actions

From scientific results to impactful innovation in a complex society: How Living Labs unite entrepreneurs, scientists, government and public interests into action

A collaboration project between the ICMAB (Elies Molins), ISGlobal (Krijn Paaijmans), and Biogents AG (Andreas Rose, Germany), has developed electrical barriers that avoid that mosquitos that can transmit diseases such as dengue, chikunguña, zika or malaria, get inside public spaces, such as schools, hospitals or workplaces.

Sergio González-Casal, Ignasi Fina*, Florencio Sánchez, Josep Fontcuberta, ACS Appl. Electron. Mater. 2019191937-1944. Publication Date: September 2, 2019

Elies Molins has given lectures at the International Conference on Materials Science (ICMS), at the Center for Applied Nanotechnology (CNAP) and at the Universidad Autonoma de Chile. His conferences have been about porous materials and their applications in catalysis and medicine. 

The article and patent related to the preparation of Graphene Oxide Aerogels, using supercritical carbon dioxide, is featured in R+D CSIC, in the news post "Ultralight, elastic and highly porous graphene oxide aerogels". 

Dr. Isabel Fuentes, Dr. María José Mostazo‐López, Dr. Zsolt Kelemen, Prof. Dr. Vicente Compañ, Dr. Andreu Andrio, Prof. Dr. Emilia Morallón, Prof. Dr. Diego Cazorla‐Amorós, Prof. Dr. Clara Viñas, Prof. Dr. Francesc Teixidor. Chemistry A European Journal, 06 August 2019.  

Organic electronics – From intrinsic material properties to selective sensors

Directors of SOMMa Centres discussed at CNIO (Spanish National Cancer Research Center) in Madrid, the network's best practices in gender equality, to implement a change of culture that allows gender equality to be integrated into strategic science decisions. From the ICMAB, Riccardo Rurali, ICMAB Deputy Director and Coordinator of the Gender Equality Committe at the ICMAB, attended the event.

Hi, I'm Genís Guillem from Sabadell. I am in the last course of de the degree in Physics and Chemistry of the UAB and I will be making my TFG in chemistry in the ICMAB.
The photography is taken near the Old Man of Storr on the isle of Skye in Scotland. It was a short and pleasant hike.

The Superconducting Materials and Large Scale Nanostructures (SUMAN) group at the ICMAB is looking for a PhD candidate to carry out the PhD thesis in the field of "Vortex physics in the overdoped state of High Temperature Superconductors”. The project will be in the framework of the ERC-Advanced Grant ULTRASUPERTAPE, and ERC-Proof-of-Concept Grant IMPACT, with Prof. Teresa Puig. 

Doctor Núria Portolés Gil from the Supercritical Fluids and Functional Matirials Group at ICMAB defended her PhD thesis on Monday, 18 November 2019. Her thesis was entitled "Green synthesis of coordination polymers using supercritical carbon dioxide", and was supervised by Dr. Concepción Domingo and Dr. Ana Maria López-Periago, from the ICMAB, and Dr. Jose Antonio Ayllón, from the UAB. Congratulations, Núria! Continue reading to know more about here next steps!

Our "Manuel Cardona" Library has acquired 17 new scientific books for all our staff! The books are about some of the main topics of our research: magnetism, neutron scattering, smart inorganic polymers, medical imaging, carbon nanomaterials or thermoelectric materials. Take a look at the list below!

I. Fuentes, J. Pujols, C. Viñas, S. Ventura, F. Teixidor, Chem. Eur. J. 2019, 25, 12820

Doctor Inés Temiño from the Molecular Nanoscience and Organic Materials (NANOMOL) Group at ICMAB defended her PhD thesis on Friday, 15 November 2019 at the ICMAB. Her thesis "Solution-Processed Organic Field-Effect Transistors: from Fundamental Aspects to Applications" was supervised by Marta Mas-Torrent. Congratulations! Continue info to know what Inés Temiño will do in a near future!

The First Annual Meeting of PhD researchers in Physics at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona(TADeF) will take place next 20-21 November 2019 at the UAB Factulty of Science. From the ICMAB, Teresa Puig (SUMAN group) will give one of the keynote talks on "High Temperature Superconductors: Complex materials with novel physics opportunities". Martí Gibert, PhD researcher at the NANOPTO group, will participate in the meeting with the short talk "Near Infrared Organic Photodetectors based on Enhanced Charge Transfer State Absorption by Photonic Architectures". 

Mayorga Burrezo, P. , Jiménez, V. G., Blasi, D. , Ratera, I. , Campaña, A. G. and Veciana, J. (2019), Angew. Chem. Int. Ed.

We announce the forthcoming 2020 E-MRS Spring Meeting and Exhibit, that will be held in Strasbourg, France from 25-29 May 2020. Mariano Campoy-Quiles and Narís Mestres, ICMAB researchers, participate in the organization of some symposia in the fields of "Energy materials" and "Nanomaterials and advanced characterization". Deadline for abstract submission: 15 January 2020.

• Researchers from the Institute of Materials Science of Barcelona (ICMAB-CSIC) and the Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (LIST) have shown that thermal conductivity can be tuned by an external applied electric field.
• If the material is mechanically deformed in a suitable way, the external applied electric field can be much lower to achieve the same thermal response.
• These advances allow envisaging a truly zero-power analogue of electronics, because phononics circuits would need no power supply.

Two of our PhD researchers, Amanda Muñoz and Pamela Machado, have participated in the CSIC Video Contest “Yo Investigo. Yo soy CSIC”, in which they have to explain their PhD Thesis in 3 minutes! You can vote by clicking "like" to the videos until 13 December 2019. 

Hello! My name is Joana Ribeiro and I am from Guimarães, a city in the North part of Portugal. I am an applied physicist and just started my PhD at the University of Minho. The goal of my work is to increase the thermoelectric properties of Transparent conductive oxide thin films. At ICMAB, I will be working together with the Nanopto group, measuring the thermal conductivity of doped ZnO and TiO2 thin films.

I practice japanese martial arts and enjoy travelling, photography and drawing.

Best Regards, Joana Ribeiro

On Tuesday, 3 December 2019, the ICMAB organizes an event to talk and share experirences on ERC projects called "European Research Council (ERC) funding opportunities – a 360° overview". The event will count with the presence of Nadine Vermorel, from the ERC Executive Agency (ERCEA) and with Lucía Benito, from the CSIC European Program. Five of the ICMAB ERC grantees will talk about their ERC experience from their own point of view. Come and join us, if you want to know more about funding opportunities for these ERC excellent projects!

Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD) is a thin film deposition technique widely used in the synthesis of semiconductor devices and nanomaterials. The main characteristic is its atomic-scale control of the layer thickness and film uniformity. Now, Mariona Coll, researcher at the ICMAB, and Mari Napari, researcher at the University of Southampton, have published a review in the journal APL Materials to describe some of the major achievements and challenges of doped and complex oxides ALD.

Read this interview to Mariona Coll to know more about ALD and its applications!

The new developement of the Scanning Probe Microscopy Lab to measure the piezoelectricity of the materials has been featured in this month newsletter of the R+D CSIC under the title "A microscope to measure accurately the piezoelectric properties of materials". 

Hi,
My name is Alex and I am originally from Sweden, where I also did my PhD in physics at Uppsala University. After that I spent three years as postdoctoral researcher in Zürich, Switzerland, before coming to ICMAB and Barcelona via an international postdoc grant from the Swedish research council. In my research I use computational methods to study the properties of materials, with focus on magnetism and magnetic materials. At ICMAB I will work with Massimiliano Stengel to investigate strain gradient induced magnetic phenomena. 

In my free time I like running, snowboarding, cooking and eating good food.

The article "A Solid‐State Aqueous Electrolyte‐Gated Field‐Effect Transistor as a Low‐Voltage Operation Pressure‐Sensitive Platform" from Marta Mas-Torrent and co-workers was highlighted in Advanced Science News. The work presents a proof-of-concept of a new transduction mechanism that can be exploited to fabricate pressure-responsive organic devices.

The European Technology and Innovation Platform on Batteries, BatteRIes Europe, held its first General Assembly on 22 October 2019 in Brussels, Belgium. Following the launch of the platform in June 2019, the day was dedicated to setting up the ground of the European initiative supported by the European Commission that will shape the research ecosystem for batteries in Europe, through the election of its very first Governing Board. M. Rosa Palacín will be part of this Governing Board, in the area of "Future and Emerging Technologies". 

On 22-23 November, the new edition of the 100xCiencia meeting, the meeting of the Severo Ochoa centers and María de Maeztu units will take place in Donostia/San Sebastián! Nora Ventosa, researcher at the Nanomol Group will represent the ICMAB at the SOMMa General Assembly, and will give a talk on Technology Transfer in Nanomedicine on Saturday, 23 November in the morning (11 am). 

Jacqueline Labra-Muñoz,Zorica Konstantinović, Lluis Balcells, Alberto Pomar, Herre S. J. van der Zant, and Diana Dulić. Appl. Phys. Lett. 115, 063104 (2019); 

This year, the Maker Faire Barcelona took place the weekend of 5-6 October in a new location: at the NAU BOSTIK, in the neighborhood of La Sagrera in Barcelona. The space was perfect for this kind of event, full of artists, inventors, creativity and sustainability. We felt really good there! From the ICMAB, Andrés Gómez and Anna May did two rounds of the workshop "Printing nanomaterials with 3Doodler" and gathered around 12-15 participants in each round. Thank you to the Maker Faire for counting on us!

The Soft Lab, run by Amable Bernabé, has hosted from Monday, 7 October, to Wednesday, 9 October a course on "Characterization techniques for particulate materials". The course has counted with 12 participants from different CSIC centers (including ICMAB, IBM-CNM, ICM, IQAC...) and has introduced the participants to different techniques to characterize nanoparticles and other particulate matter, including the basic fundamentals, sample preparation, practical examples and results interpretation.