Manuel Souto defended his PhD Thesis in 2016 at the ICMAB. He carried out his research in the Nanomol Group, supervised by Jaume Veciana and Imma Ratera.  He is now working at CICECO-University of Aveiro, in Portugal.

"It is an honour to have received this European award which is the third recognition for the work done during my doctoral thesis. I would like to thank my supervisors and collaborators who helped me during those years. This award is a stimulus to continue doing research and developing new ideas by constantly learning." - Manuel Souto, currently researcher at CICECO - University of Aveiro, Portugal

Manuel Souto was awarded with the UAB PhD Extraordinary Award 2015-2016  and the first runner-up doctorate NANOMOLMAT 2016 award for his PhD Thesis, in previous occasions. 

The PhD Thesis in a nutshell

Manuel Souto followed a molecular approach to develop the next generation of electronic devices at the nanoscale level, because of the high versatility and tunability that molecular chemistry offers. The thesis was focused on the design and synthesis of a new family of multifunctional organic materials based on donor-acceptor (D-A) dyads formed by the electron-donor tetrathiafulvalene (TTF) unit and the electron-acceptor perchlorotriphenylmethyl (PTM) radical linked through different -conjugated bridges.

These compounds exhibited interesting physical properties such as bistability and nonlinear optical properties in solution, pressure-induced electrical conductivity in the solid state and rectifying behavior when anchored on surfaces as Self-Assembled Monolayers (SAMs). This family of organic D-A radical dyads are promising molecular materials towards different applications in the fields of molecular electronics and spintronics as molecular switches, conductors, and rectifiers.

About the ADocMolMag awards

This is the sixt edition of the ADocMolMag awards, which continue the tradition dated back to the first award, presented at the International Congress of Molecular Magnetism, ICMM 2008, held in Firenze, Italy, September 2008.

There are, in total, three winners:

• Dr. Claudio Bonizzoni - Department of Physics, Informatics and Mathematics - University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy. With a thesis entitled: Coherent coupling of molecular spins with YBCO microwave resonators – towards the integration of molecular spins into quantum circuits, carried out at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy
• Dr. Clement Godfrin - Quantum Institute, Sherbrooke, Canada (now at IMEC, Belgium) With a thesis entitled: Quantum information processing using a molecular magnet single nuclear spin qudit, carried out at the Néel Institut, CNRS Grenoble, France
• Dr. Manuel Souto - CICECO - University of Aveiro Campus de Santiago, Portugal With a thesis entitled: Multifunctional Materials based on TTFPTM dyads: towards new Molecular Switches, Conductors and Rectifiers, carried out at the Institute of Materials Science of Barcelona (ICMABCSIC) and Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), Spain

The awards ceremony will be at the International Conference on Molecular Magnetism (ICMM) 2021, in Manchester, UK. The three winners will receive the diploma and the support towards the attendance at one of the international conferences devoted to Molecular Magnetism. 

The winners of the "European Award on Molecular Magnetism Doctoral Thesis", ADocMolMag VI Edition, organised by the European Institute of Molecular Magnetism, EIMM a.i.s.b.l., have been selected by the jury composed by three renowned scientists:

• Prof. Jesper Bendix, Department of Chemistry of the University of Copenhagen, Denmark
• Dr. Tatiana Guidi, scientist within the ISIS Excitations Group, ISIS, Great Britain
• Prof. Jürgen Schnack, Fakultät für Physik, Universität Bielefeld, Germany. 

More information:

For more information visit the website of The European Magnetism Association with the news "Winners of the ADocMolMag VI (2019 call)" or their Twitter Account (@EmaMagnetism), where they announced the winners with this tweet: 

Congratulations to 🏅Winners of the 2019 European Award on Molecular 🧲 Magnetism Doctoral Thesis: Claudio Bonizzoni, Clément Godfrin, Manuel Souto. https://t.co/na2cALoiTp pic.twitter.com/UXEoqhROZK

— The European Magnetism Association (@EmaMagnetism) May 5, 2020