29 symposiums at the European Materials Research Society (E-MRS) Spring Meeting 2018, one of the most important meetings in materials science research, which gathers together many professionals of Europe and the world. Many researchers from ICMAB are attending this week this meeting, held in Strasbourg (France), for 5 days (from 18 to 22 June, 2018).
Blai Casals, Andrea Schiaffino, Arianna Casiraghi, Sampo J. Hämäläinen, Diego López González, Sebastiaan van Dijken, Massimiliano Stengel, and Gervasi Herranz, Phys. Rev. Lett. 120, 217601. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.120.217601
The Association of Women Researchers and Technologists in Catalonia (AMIT-CAT), with the collaboration of the ICE/UAB and the sponsorship of the Institut d'Estudis Catalans (IEC) thanks to the "Premi Sant Jordi Creus Cases 2017", opens the call for the "STEM AMB TU" initiative, in which young women professionals will bring STEM to secondary schools to promote STEM among girls.
The Comfuturo program (“Un Compromiso público privado con la ciencia y el Futuro”) has granted the research project "NANOingeniería de ÓXIdos para el mayor aprovechamiento de la energía SOLar usando rutas no convencionales (NANOXISOL)" (Oxides nanoengineering for improvement of photovoltaic efficiency using non-conventional routes) presented by Ignasi Fina in this second edition.
Mauro Brotons-Gisbert, Alfredo Segura, Roberto Robles, Enric Canadell, Pablo Ordejón, and Juan F. Sánchez-Royo. Phys. Rev. Materials 2, 054602. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevMaterials.2.054602
Hi! My name is Aleix and I come from Girona, i'm an engineer. I'm in the third year of electronic engineering, in the UdG. I'm here doing interships and I really want to start. My job here will be help in a project of an ALD reactor(Atomic layer deposition), i'm very excited!
When i have free time, i like to watch series, go out with friends and practice sports, like football. Football is my favourite sport.
I'm sure that i will meet very good people here, see you!
Hello! My name is İpek EFE and I am from Turkey. I have recently graduated from Materials Science and Nano Engineering in Sabanci University, Istanbul. Between June- August I will be doing my Erasmus+ internship at ICMAB, Nanostructered Materials Department (NANOPTENER). I like spending my free time with friends, by travelling, doing outdoor activities or visiting art galleries/museums. I am looking forward to meet everyone :-)
F. Vallès, A. Palau, V. Rouco, B. Mundet, X. Obradors & T. Puig. Scientific Reports, volume 8, Article number: 5924(2018).
The International Conference On Phosphorus, Boron and Silicon – PBSi 2018 will take place in Barcelona on 10-12 December 2018. From chemistry to catalysis, materials, biology, and medicine, from theory to application, the main target of this conference is to gather Researchers and Experts in Phosphorus, Boron and Silicon community in order to provide all participants with the latest progress and inputs recorded in each field.
Sensory (or afferent) nerves bring sensations of touch, pain, or temperature variation to the central nervous system and brain. Using the tools and materials of organic electronics, researchers led by chemist Zhenan Bao at Stanford University, and with the participation of Raphael Pfattner, now ICMAB researcher, but at that time Postdoctoral Fellow at Bao Research Group, have constructed an artificial sensory nerve that works in much the same way.
Every spring, ICMAB celebrates its anniversary with a party for all the members of the Institute. ICMAB was founded in 1986, so this year we celebrated its 32 anniversary! From early in the morning until mid-afternoon, a lot of different activities were organized by many volunteers, so that everybody could particiapate and enjoy the day.
My name is Judit and I am from Tarragona, living nowadays in Sabadell. I am joining to the Nanomol Group as a Tecniospring Postdoctoral researcher. I got my Bachelor’s Degree in Biotechnology and the Nanoscience Master at University Rovira i Virgili of Tarragona. On 2017 I obtained the PhD in Nanoscience, Materials and Chemical Engineering, working on the analysis of nucleic acids using nanoparticles, during that period I was 6 month at Nanyang Technological University of Singapore. From March 2017 I have been working as Innovation Manager at Beauty Cluster Barcelona. I like science dissemination, I've been collaborating with schools and participating in monolgue contests. I love travelling, reading and I like to enjoy my free time with friends.
Our traditional photo contest, FOTICMAB, is already a consolidated activity and receives every year a high participation. This year, we had three categories: scientific, artistic and "ICMAB moments". The artistic category was the one with the highest participation (48 photos), followed by our most favourite scientific category (19 photos) and the recovered "ICMAB moments" with 10 photos.
The winner of the scientific category is the photo you can see above; "Photonic leaf" by Cristiano Matricardi. "Rainbow", by Laia Soler won the artistic category, and "¡Con una sonrisa se trabaja mejor!" by Adriana Kyvik won the "ICMAB moments" category. The three winners are all PhD researchers at the Institute. The winner of each cateogory received a smartbox to enjoy a dinner for two.
Let's see the story behind each one of the winning and finalist photos:
Hello! My name is Marc Monné and I'm right now in my last year of a double degree in Physics and Mathematics at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB). I will be doing my final degree project here at ICMAB, studying and modelling transition-edge sensors. In my free time, I enjoy playing the piano, dancing and acting
A group of researchers from the NANOMOL group at ICMAB-CSIC has studied the behavior of an organic radical as a molecular cable formed through the covalent carbon-gold bond between the molecule and the electrodes. This linkage is more stable and geometrically better well-defined than its predecessors, in which other functional groups where used. This improvement opens the door to prepare novel electronic devices for Molecular Electronics applications.
The study has been featured in UABDivulga, and we transcribe here the text.
Maria Serena Maglione, Javier Casado-Montenegro, Eva-Corinna Fritz, Núria Crivillers, Bart Jan Ravoo, Concepció Rovira and Marta Mas-Torrent*. Chem. Commun., 2018,54, 3038-3041. DOI: 10.1039/C8CC00494C.
Call for Internship Fellowships for Master Students at Research Institutes with the «Severo Ochoa» Centre of Excellence and «María de Maeztu» Unit of Excellence accreditaion
This year's call for the Severo Ochoa Internship Fellowship for Master Students was published on May 9, 2018. We publish here the projects offered by our researchers and the information needed for the calls:
A. Ardizzone, S. Kurhuzenkau, S. Illa‐Tuset, J. Faraudo, M. Bondar, D. Hagan, E. W. Van Stryland, A. Painelli,C. Sissa, N. Feiner, L. Albertazzi, J. Veciana, N. Ventosa, Small 2018, 1703851. https://doi.org/10.1002/smll.201703851
Hari Babu Vasili*, Matheus Gamino, Jaume Gàzquez*, Florencio Sánchez , Manuel Valvidares, Pierluigi Gargiani, Eric Pellegrin, and Josep Fontcuberta*.ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces, 2018, 10 (14), pp 12031–12041
DOI: 10.1021/acsami.8b00384
"Solitons are solitary waves, like a tsunami or a tidal bore" explains researcher Ferran Macià, one of the leaders of this study, published in Scientific Reports and in which the ICMAB has participated together with a team of physicists from the New York University (NYU). "In this work, we studied how magnetic solitons are generated and how fast they can be annihilated."
"Like a tsunami, the mechanism behind their formation is complex, and we needed a lot of experiments and simulations to understand them. Solitons are very interesting because they can be used to propagate energy or information, in a similar way as our neurons work. This is why they have promising applications in neuromorphic computing applications, for example" continues Ferran.Nahuel Statuto, PhD student at the MULFOX group, working with Ferran, performed some of the experiments during his secondment at NYU.
The Fundació Catalunya La Pedrera has developed the program "Bojos per la Ciència" to open the doors of the most relevant research institutes to the most excellent secondary school students. ICMAB joined in 2017 ICN2, IFAE and UAB for the second edition of "Bojos per la Física" and continued this year within this program, which has been a real success.
Hi everyone! My name is Brittany and I'm interning here at Nanomol Technologies this summer. This fall I will be entering in my third year at the University of Alabama. I'm very excited to be here for the summer and getting to meet everybody!
On June 7-9, 2018, Geneva (Switzerland) hosted the 29th edition of the Ecsite Annual Conference 2018. An event that gathered a record-breaking 1,182 professionals from 58 countries. The event was hosted by the Natural History Museum of Geneva in partnership with CERN, University of Geneva Scienscope, and Campus Biotech.
The study published in Advanced Materials "An Unprecedented Stimuli Controlled Single-crystal Reversible Phase Transition of a Metal-Organic Framework and its Application to a Novel Method of Guest Encapsulation" was featured in UABdivulga.
We are glad to announce that the 10th International Symposium on Nitrides (ISNT2019) will be held in Barcelona, Spain on June 9-14, 2019. Early registration and Abstract Submission starts on September 15, 2018 (Deadline: 24 January 2019).
by Tatsuo KAIHO, Chiba University, Japan
Monday, 9 July 2018 @ 12 pm
ICMAB - Sala d'Actes Carles Miravitlles
Diamond Light Source, the UK’s national synchrotron, is looking for a Principal Beamline Scientist for the Microfocus Spectroscopy beamline at Diamond, I18. The successful candidate would be responsible for a polarised soft X-ray facility dedicated to X-ray magnetic circular and linear dichroism spectroscopy and imaging.
Three ICMAB researchers have been granted with a Ramon y Cajal grant from the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness.
Ignasi Fina, from the MULFOX group, in the area of Materials Science; Arántzazu González, from the FunNanoSurf group, in the area of Chemistry, and Judith Guasch, from the NANOMOL group, in the area of Biomedicine. Congratulations to all three!
Are you ready for a weekend full of science in an amazing venue in Barcelona? On June 9-10, many ICMAB researchers participate at the Barcelona Science Festival at Parc de la Ciutadella (Barcelona). Come with us and participate with your friends and family to the many activities prepared.
From ICMAB, Jordi Rius and Ashley Black will give two microtalks on crystalline structure of minerals and lithium-ion batteries, Martí Gibert will participate on a debate on how nanotechnology affects our life, Javier Repetto will talk about nanomedicine and the film Fantastic Voyage, and Anna May will be challenging the participants with a photonic contest and coordinating some of the events.
This article was published on May 28, 2018, in La Vanguardia, and is signed by Carina Farreras, Barcelona. We transcribe it here as it is. You can download here the paper version. SOMMa is the alliance of the Severo Ochoa and Maria de Maeztu research centers and units, formed by 41 research centers and units, and by more than 5,000 researchers. SOMMa wants to promote Spanish Excellence in research and enhance its social impact at national and international levels.
Jinting Hang, Christian Hahn, Nahuel Statuto, Ferran Macià & Andrew D. Kent. Scientific Reports, volume 8, Article number: 6847 (2018) doi:10.1038/s41598-018-25134-zdoi:10.1038/s41598-018-25134-z
Pint of Science, the festival that gathers people together in bars to listen to scientific presentations instead of watching a football match, has been a great success, with more than 20,000 participants around Spain. In Barcelona, 10 bars were hosting scientific talks during the three days of the festival (14, 15 and 16 May 2018). ICMAB was also represented, as we explained in a previous post: Javier Repetto in Casa Orlandai on Tuesday 15 May, and Irene Antonin Alfa Bar on Wednesday 16 May.
The "Bake your best cake" contest of our ICMAB party counted with 11 participants and 12 cakes or desserts (one participant baked 2). A jury formed by 6 experts in the field valued the originality, the aspect and the flavor of each one of them. The contest took place at 11 am in the morning, and caused a huge expectation among the ICMAB members, as you can see in the picture.
The winning cake was the "Superflavored 2D material" cake, from Marta Vendrell. This cake had some very special ingredients... Take a look at them:
Five ICMAB graduates from the PhD programme in Materials Science received the PhD Extraordinary Award for their doctoral thesis developed during the period 2014-2015. The award ceremony took place on May 18, 2018, at 6 pm, at the Hotel Campus UAB. Laura Cabana Jiménez, Pedro López-Aranguren Oliver, Nerea Murillo Cremaes, David Pesquera Herrero and Albert Queraltó López were recognised for their PhD dissertations.
Researchers from ICMAB-CSIC and ALBA have analyzed the microscopic origin of the so-called "magnetic proximity effect" occurring at the interface between a magnetic material (CoFe2O4) and a nonmagnetic metal (Pt), which may induce a magnetic moment in the latter. The results are published in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces.
J.Muñoz, A.González-Campo, M.Riba-Moliner, M.Baeza, M.Mas-Torrent, Biosensors and Bioelectronics. Volume 105, 15 May 2018, Pages 95-102. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bios.2018.01.024
On Wednesday, May 9, 2018, the Institut d'Estudis Catalans (IEC) hosted the XXX IEC Chemistry Debate "Connect the Materials Science with the young students". Susagna Ricart and Arántzazu González took part in the event, which was held from 4 to 7 pm at the amazing "Sala Prat de la Riba".
The event also included an awards ceremony for the students who won the prizes to the best secondary school Research Projects (12a edició dels Premis als Treballs de Recerca). Three of these students will come to ICMAB this summer as part of this award to work closely with three of our researchers and see the daily life of a scientist!
On April 11, 2018, the ICMAB was present at the XIII "Fira d'Empreses" or Business Forum, at the Universitat the Barcelona (UB), after some years of absence. This forum is designed to showcase job opportunities and career paths and attract students in the final stages of their university degree, and is organized by the Science and Engineering Departments of the UB (Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics and Computer Science, Earth Sciences and Biology). 105 industries, research centers and universities participated in the event, which counted with the visit of more than 600 unversity students from sixteen degrees and twenty-two masters in these scientific areas.
Organizations and employers linked to R&D&I show their support for Spanish research and join the request of the Alliance of Severo Ochoa centers and María de Maeztu units (SOMMa) that encourages the political class to address the current administrative problems that affect Spanish science, as soon as possible.
SOMMa and the organizations that support this initiative represent about 6,800 companies, societies, centers and research units, which employ more than 500,000 people in Spain and their economic activity equals 10.53% of GDP.
Hey! My name is Afroditi, I'm a physics student from Greece. From May till August I will be doing my Erasmus traineeship at ICMAB in the Laser Processing Group. I enjoy reading, watching movies and tv series but I usually prefer spending my free time with my friends. I hope that I will have a great experience here. I am looking forward to meeting all of you :)
The PhD Researcher Maria Serena Maglione from the NANOMOL group defended her PhD thesis on "Preparation of electroactive self-assembled monolayers for the fabrication of advanced electronic devices" on Friday, 27 April. Her friends and family joined her during the defense of her thesis, which was evaluated by Fabio Biscarini (Universitá di Modena e Reggio Emilia), Arántzazu González (ICMAB) and Emilio Pérez (IMDEA Nanociencia). The thesis supervisors were Marta Mas-Torrent and Concepció Rovira.
Anna May-Masnou
Lluís Soler
Miquel Torras
Pol Salles
Jordi Llorca
Anna Roig