Events

Electron Spin Resonance (ESR) Approach in Studying Polymer Composites

by Srećko Valić, Ruđer Bošković Institute, Division of Physical Chemistry, Zagreb, Croatia

Monday, 1 July 2019 @ 12 pm
ICMAB - Sala d'Actes Carles Miravitlles

The book "Oxide Spintronics" (Pan Stanford Publishing) has recently been published. Ignasi Fina and Gervasi Herranz, reserachers at the MULFOX group (Laboratory of Multifunctional Thin Films and Complex Structures) have co-authored the book, collaborating in some chapters about spintronic in multiferroics, and orbital symmetry and electronic properties of 2D electron systems.

Every spring, the ICMAB celebrates its Anniversary. This year, we celebrated it on Friday, 14 June 2019. A morning full of different activites was organised by our staff: a foot orienteering race organised by Ferran Macià, Poker, chess, and Party & Co. tournements, a swing class by Swing UAB, a sketching workshop by Alejandro Santos, a cakes and a world cooking contest, and the traditional tennis table tournement. See some of the photos in this post!

Supercritical fluid technology for delivery systems for food bioactives

Magnetic particles for biomedical applications: sample preparation, transport, detection and surface modification

by Prof. Abdelhamid Elaissari, University of Lyon-1, CNRS, Villeurbanne, France

Friday, 14 June 2019 @ 9:30 am
ICMAB - Sala d'Actes Carles Miravitlles

We are glad to announce that the 10^th 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). 

The IX AUSE Conference and 4th ALBA User’s Meeting 2019, jointly organized by AUSE (the Spanish Synchrotron User Association) and ALBA Synchrotron, will be held in ALBA synchrotron, Cerdanyola del Vallès (Barcelona) during Tuesday-8th and Thursday-10th of October 2019. Submit your abstracts to participate until 14 June 2019!

On 6-7 June 2019, the PhD meeting of the PhD fellows of the Barcelona Nanocluster in Bellaterra (JPhD2019) was held at the ICMAB-CSIC and at the ICN2 facilities. The meeting was organized by PhD fellows from the ICMAB-CSIC, ICN2, ALBA Synchrotron, UAB and IMB-CNM-CSIC, working in a nanoscience and nanotechnology related topic. 

In the framework of the European Week of Sustainable Energy, experts from the field of energy transition will talk about the energy of the future and the social impact of the energetic system as we know it. Xavier Obradors, from the ICMAB will give an introductory talk. A roundtable with the participation of members of IREC, ICN2, ICFO, CNM, ICMAB and "Xarxa per la Sobirania Energètica" will follow. 

Mariona Coll and Josep Fontcuberta from the Institute of Materials Science of Barcelona (ICMAB-CSIC), Fabio Miletto Granozio from the CNR-SPIN (Complesso Universitario di Monte Sant’Angelo, Napoli, Italy) and Nini Pryds from the Department of Energy Storage and Conversion, Technical University of Denmark, have edited the compendium "Towards Oxide Electronics: a Roadmap" published recently in Applied Surface Science. The article counts with 28 contributions from 56 authors of 42 academic institutions and industries from Europe, USA and Japan. The compendium has 93 pages and includes 913 references!

In the framework of the MSCA-RISE 2017 H2020 Project: Hybrid Nanostructured Oligonucleotide Platforms for Biomedical Applications (Nano-OligoMed), the International Summer School on Hybrid (bio) Nanostructures (HyNano), which is focused on hybrid organic-inorganic materials containing biomolecules or having bioinspired structures, will take place in Alghero (Italy) between 3-7 September 2019. Nora Ventosa from the NANOMOL group is Invited Speaker. Register before 30 June 2019! 

The 16th edition of the NanoSpain Conference, annual appointment for experts in nanoscience and nanotechnologies, takes place at the Parc Científic of Barcelona on May 28-31, 2019. Many ICMABers are attending the conference, including Anna Laromaine as Invited Speaker, and Jaume Veciana as Advisory Board. 

On Monday, 27 May 2019, Gerard Tobias was in charge of giving the talk within the "Dilluns de Ciència" conference cycle in commemoration of the 150 years of the Periodic Table of the Elements, at the Residència d'Investigadors of the CSIC. Gerard's talk was entitled "El carboni: de l’origen de la vida a la nanociència", and is about carbon nanomaterials and their applications. Luckily the conference was filmed and now you can watch it online! 

Coinciding with the 100th anniversary of IUPAC in 2019, the XXXVII edition of the Biennial of theSpanish Royal Society of Chemistry will be held on May 26-30, 2019 in Donostia-San Sebastian. ICMABers from the Inorganic Materials and Catalysis Lab, from the FunNanoSurf group and from the NANOMOL group attend the meeting!

This Sunday, 26 May 2019, the 8th International Conference on Spectroscopic Ellipsometry (ICSE8) starts at the World Trade Center, and will last until 31 May 2019. Six days devoted to the instrumentation, science and applications of spectroscopic ellipsometry and related techniques, and with a high participation of ICMAB researchers. The Conference Chair is M. Isabel Alonso, from the ICMAB-CSIC.

A Molecular View of Organic interfaces

The Nanostructured Materials for Optoelectronics and Energy Generation (NANOPTO) group has auto-edited a video in which the process of fabrication or organic solar cells with thickness gradients is explained. This process is part of the ERC project by Mariano Campoy-Quiles "FOREMAT: Finding a needle in a haystack: Efficient identification of high performing organic energy materials".

How to produce hydrogen with photonic crystals?

by Jordi Llorca, INTE-UPC

Monday, 17 June 2019 @ 12 pm
ICMAB - Sala d'Actes Carles Miravitlles

This seminar is part of the EU Sustainable Week! 

Have you ever thought if the carbon-carbon (C-C) bond distance is always the same, or it can change? And if it changes, which is the maximum distance of this kind of bond? An article published in "Chemical & Engineering News!" addressed this topic. After this article was first published, Clara Viñas contacted C&EN to let them know that even longer carbon-carbon bonds exist than the ones they mentioned: In 2002, a team including Clara Viñas described a 2.022 Å long carbon-carbon bond in an inorganic cluster (Inorg. Chem. 2002, DOI: 10.1021/ic011285z). 

Sustainable Electrochemical Extraction of Lithium Chloride from Natural Brine

The event, held on 8-9 May, belongs to the series of workshops offering an overview of the different research areas covered by the ICMAB Severo Ochoa Strategic Plan. It was focused on molecular and organic electronics, and organised by a local organising committee formed by researchers of the research lines RL1 (Sustainable energy conversion and storage systems) and RL4 (Molecular electronics). 

Within the framework of the IV Festival of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology 10alamenos9, the Institutional Delegation of the CSIC in Madrid organizes a new edition of the National Meeting of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology Outreach Projects (Encuentro Nacional de Nanodivulgadores), on Friday, 26 April 2019, at the IQFR (Madrid). 

If you follow the Twitter of the RSEQ (@RSEQUIMICA) you will find on their timeline a bunch of articles devoted to the Peridic Table Elements. The RSEQ is preparing a special issue of the journal "Anales de Química", that will come out on May 5, 2019, to celebrate the International Year of the Periodic Table (IYPT) 2019. The article about Boron is written by Clara Viñas, researcher at ICMAB, who has been working for a long time with this element!

We invite you to the II Workshop on Spectroscopy Techniques: Generalities and Applications, which will be held at ICMAB, Barcelona, on April 1, 2019. If you are working in this field, or are interested in spectroscopy techniques, such as Raman, EPR or NMR, you cannot miss it! We encourage PhD and Master students to attend! Registration is free and deadline is March 15, 2019. 

On Thursday 21 March, the Superconducting Materials group was at the "Espai Ciència" of the "Saló de l'Ensenyament" at the CSIC-Catalunya stand, which included different kinds of activities from different Catalan CSIC research centers. The Superconducting team showed the visitors the science behing the levitating train, liquid nitrogen and the properties of nanoparticles. 

On Thursday, 14 March 2019, the ICMAB hosts the workshop on Gender Equality in Research Centers entitled "¿Y a mí, qué me aporta la igualdad?". The workshop is aimed for all the ICMAB staff (scientific, technical, administration, students...) and will take place from 8:45 am to 2 pm. Don't miss this opportunity to learn and interact with your colleagues about this topic that affects all of us!  

On 12 March 2019, and in the framework of the Women's International Day, 8 March, the Châtelet team went to Sant Cugat to perform the dramatised reading that visibilizes the women scientists along history "Madame Châtelet and her Instagram followers". The students, of 11-12 years old, were really attentive and asked many questions after the lecture. Thank you for inviting us!

On 7-8 March 2019, the VI Strategic Immersion of the Advanced Materials Cluster (Cluster MAV), in collaboration with ACCIÓ, took place in Sitges. Our Technology Transfer Officer, Alfonso del Rey, attented the event, which main aim was to know the main trends and world challenges in the advanced materials field. 

Terrassa held on 6-7 March 2019 the first edition of the "Women, Science and Technology" (WSciTech19) Conference (Congrés de Dones, Ciència i Tecnologia) and the "Châtelet team" at ICMAB presented their dramatised lecture "Madame Châtelet and her Instagram followers" as a tool to visibilize the wise women in the history of science. Susagna Ricart and Anna May, in representation of the team, presented a Poster, and an Oral Communication, which resulted in a fantastic colloquium.

Carlos Frontera, researcher at ICMAB and member of the Gender Equality Committee of the ICMAB, attended on February 14-15, 2019, the European project LIBRA workshop to share experiences on “How to design, implement and follow-up a Gender Equality Plan”.

On Monday, 11 February 2019, we will celebrate the International Day of Women and Girls in Science at ICMAB! We have a full morning prepared with a seminar to discover who was and what did Lise Meitner do, followed by a presentation of some of the participants of the STEM-AMB-TU initiative from AMIT-CAT to encourage scientific vocations to young girls. Do you want to share this day with us?

We heard with great sadness that Dominique Givord, CNRS researcher in Grenoble, passed away this week. Many researchers from the ICMAB collaborated with him and worked directly with him. Dominique contributed to the build of the ICMAB by inspiring many of our research activities and research lines, supporting young scientists and advising us on the big challenges of magnetic materials, as required by our modern and future society. His loss is felt by many of us.

2019 will be the 150th anniversary since Dmitry Mendeleev discovered the Periodic System and has been proclaimed the "International Year of the Periodic Table of Chemical Elements" (IYPT2019) (AITP in Catalan).

Synthetic DNA-based nanodevices for sensing applications

On Monday, 4 February 2019, the Paranimf of the Universitat de Barcelona hosted the 7th edition of the Interdisciplinary Meeting of Predoctoral Researchers (JIPI, Jornada d'Investigadors Predoctorals Interdisciplinària), organized by PhD fellows and supported by many entities and organizations, including the ICMAB-CSIC. M. Rosa Palacin was invited in the closing session of the event, in which some of our ICMAB PhD researchrers participated. 

Charge generation in organic photovoltaic devices: Could coherence contribute?

The ICMAB will be present at the Conference about women, science and technology "Dones, Ciència i Tecnologia" presenting our dramatised lecture "Madame Châtelet and her Instagram followers" as a tool to enhance the visibility of the role of women scientists throughout history. 

This next Thursday, 31 January 2019 at 7 pm, Susagna Ricart, researcher at the Superconducting and Large Scale Nanostructures (SUMAN) group, and also member of the "Madame Châtelet" cast, will give a talk to visibilize brave women of history. 

On Tuesday, 29 January 2019, the Welcome Day of the Doctoral Training Programme in Functional Advanced Materials (DOC-FAM) First Call Fellows took place at the ICMAB. The DOC-FAM is a H2020-MSCA-COFUND project coordinated by ICMAB-CSIC in collaboration with four partner research institutions from the area: IMB-CNM, IREC, ALBA Synchrotron and ICN2. In this first call, 10 PhD Fellows from all around the world have started their research training programme within these institutions. Meet them here! 

The next conference cycle "Dilluns de Ciència" is about crystals and life. Two of the five conferences of the cycle will be given by two ICMAB researchers, Dra. Núria Aliaga (ICREA Reserach Professor) and Dr. Gerard Tobias (Tenured Scientist at ICMAB). All the talks will be at the "Residència d'Investigadors" at 6:30 pm, and will take place always on a Monday. The first talk is on January, 21, and the last one will be on April, 29, 2019. 

To celebrate the International Day of Women and Girls in Science, the ICMAB will host a conference about Lise Meitner, followed by a presentation of the AMIT-Cat Association. You are all invited to join us on 11 Februrary!

Lise Meitner: insights from recent research

by Xavier ROQUÉ, Centre d'Història de la Ciència (CEHIC)

Monday, 11 February 2019 @ 11 am
ICMAB - Sala d'Actes Carles Miravitlles

Conductive MOFs as Multifunctional Materials: Design, Properties, and Devices

Alejandro Santos is the Librarian & Documentalist of ICMAB. His office is right inside the Manuel Cardona Library, at ICMAB. However, during his free time he is also a professional sketcher, and during the last years he has participated in numerous projects on "scientific sketching" in different research centers in the Barcelona Area. On Thursday, 20 December 2018, he gave a talk at the IMB-CNM-CSIC about sketching and science entitled "Sketching y Ciencia. Divulgando dibujando".

The CMES is the "Col·lectiu per a un Nou Model Energètic i Social Sostenible". Funded in 2012, the group is formed by professionals, mainly from the engineering field, worried about the current energy model based on fossil fuels and uranium, which "will lead us to an environmental, economic and social crisis without precedents". The CMES group came to visit the ICMAB and listen to some of our researchers working on renewable energies, superconducting materials and batteries. Now, Xavier Obradors, ICMAB Director, will give a talk on "Nanotechnology and energy transition" on February 4, 2019. 

On Tuesday, 29 January 2019, the Welcome Day for the COFUND MSCA Doctoral Training Programme on Functional Advanced Materials "DOC-FAM" PhD Fellows will take place at ICMAB. The Welcome Day is aimed to present the project and introduce the first call PhD fellows and their projects. In this first call, the projects are being carried out at ICMAB-CSIC, ALBA Synchrotron and IREC. 

The "Scientific Meeting of BNC-b Students" organized by PhD fellows and open to undergraduate, master students and PhD researchers, comes back in 2019! The meeting is aimed to present the work performed by PhD students of the whole Barcelona Nanotechnology Cluster – Bellaterra (ICMAB, ICN2, IMB-CNM, UAB, ALBA), promoting collaborations between them in an academic and scientific environment. The meeting will be held at ICMAB and ICN2 on 6-7 June 2019. Abstracts and registration deadline: 26 April 2019. Will you miss it?

We announce the forthcoming 2019 E-MRS Spring Meeting and Exhibit, that will be held in Nice, France (Congress & Exhibition Centre Acropolis) from 27-31 May 2019. Alexander Ponrouch and Florencio Sánchez, ICMAB researchers, participate in the organization of some symposia in the fields of "materials for energy" and "nano-functional materials":