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The rapid characterization of the SARS-CoV-2 virus has allowed researchers at the Soft Matter Theory Group to learn more about how it interacts with surfaces through extremely precise simulations. The results have been published in the scientific journal Biointephases.

On 9 November 2020, Judith Guasch appered in the cover of the Agencia SINC in an interview to talk about her research on 3D hydrogels that mimic lymph nodes and that will be used as scaffolds for T cell culture in cancer immunotherapy.

The journal Materials Horizons (RSC) includes in its last "Emerging Investigator Series" collection, an interview to ICMAB researcher Ignasi Fina, for his recent publication "Local manipulation of metamagnetism by strain nanopatterning". 

The "Interviews" section of the CSIC website includes on 7 August 2020 an interview to ICMAB researcher Mariano Campoy-Quiles for his recent ERC Proof of Concept, awarded to him for a project to develop organic thermoelectric generators for self-powered sensors to be applied in vineyards. 

The way the different countries in the world reacted to the emerging crisis that a global pandemic brings and the results they achieved can illuminate the path for a new way to structure scientific innovation. ESADE Professor Xavier Ferràs helps us understand what was the scientific paradigm when COVID-19 hit and how can we expect it to shift.

The 15th edition of the Webometrics Ranking of World Universities has been published, ranking researchers in Spain as well as Spaniards doing research abroad, and the list features more than a hundred ICMAB researchers. This initiative developed by CSIC intends to boost online publication of research.

Teresa Puig appears on the 34th volume of Superconductor Week, a monthly newsletter dedicated to bringing news and analysis about superconductivity to all related parties, from scientists to investors in the industry. Their latest issue covers the breakthrough achieved by the Superconducting Materials Research Group (SUMAN) in the field of growth of YBCO epitaxial films, which was already covered in Nature Communications 11, 334 (2020).

New technologies are frequently supported on innovative functional materials that allow for improvements in performance in order to leave behind the physical limitations of current materials. The economic supplement of La Razón Innovadores talked with 6 expert researchers on the field of materials, amongst which was ICMAB's Director Xavier Obradors, to find more about the future of hardware in advanced technologies. 

The article published in JACS by Pepe Giner et al. in which the international team reports a MOF (metal-organic framework) that can separate biobutanol from the biomass fermentation products has received much attention in the American media, since there is a high demand for gasoline, and one of the research collaborators was from Oregon State University.

The article "Efficient blue light emitting materials based on m-carborane-anthracene dyads. Structure, photophysics and bioimaging studies" published in 2019 in Biomaterials Science, by Núñez et al. has been featured recently in UAB Divulga. You can find the text in English, Catalan and Spanish. 

An article published in the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry , and with the participation of Elies Molins, shows a new family of molecules with high affinity to join imidazoline receptors, which are altered in the brain of those patients with neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and Huntington’s. According to the preclinical study, the merge of these specific ligands to I₂ receptors improves cognitive skills and some biomarkers which are indicators of brain neurodegenerative processes in murine models.

First results of bacterial nanocellulose ocular bandages for innovative ophthalmic treatment have been published at Biomaterials Science. The bacterial nanocellulose, which is more affordable and easier to maintain than current treatments for corneal repair, will be impregnated with growth factors to accelerate corneal regeneration. The research is developed by the Nanoparticles and Nanocomposites Groups (NN) in close collaboration with the Barraquer Ophthalmology Centre in Barcelona, which supports this project from a clinical perspective.

Nine ICMAB researchers appear on the Webcindario h-index ranking. A database which contains information of the researchers working in Spain in different areas, which have a high h-index (higher than a certain threshold). Our researchers appear in 7 different research areas, being Multidisciplinary Chemistry, Inorganic & Nuclear Chemistry and Applied Physics the most common ones. 

During 2019, ICMAB researchers have written more than 220 articles in international peer-review science journals of various disciplines: chemistry, physics, materials, nanotechnology, photonics, energy, superconductivity, biochemistry, etc. We have selected in this post the journals in which our researchers publish most of the articles. Do you want to know which they are?

After another year, we look back and see how was this year's scientific research. More than 220 articles, which makes a total of more than 5,400 publications and more than 145,000 citations since the Institue's foundation, in 1986. The most cited articles published in 2019 are shown in this post. Do you want to know which ones are they? From FCC-hh, oxide electronics, perovskites, oxide thin films, organic field-effect transistors and much more! 

Carbon nanocapsules, filled with stable Samarium atoms, are activated with neutrons just before entering the body. This novel nanomaterial-based system is effective for both biomedical imaging and cancer radiotherapy. 

The article "Hydroxypropyl cellulose photonic architectures by soft nanoimprinting lithography" published in Nature Photonics in April 2018 appears in Nature Index as one of the main highlights of the year! Congratulations to Agustín Mihi and his team for this nice article on photonic nanocellulose!

Researchers at IBEC and ICMAB develop a flexible, cheap and biocompatible transistor platform able to record an electrocardiogram of cells and micro-tissues during long periods of time. The platform, based on organic transistor technology (EGOFET), can also measure the effect of drugs on beating cells, as cardiomyocytes, opening the door to several applications such as implantable devices for health.

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!

• 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.

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.

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". 

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". 

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 journal "Superconductor Science and Technology" published the Viewpoint by Xavier Obradors entitled "High critical current nanocomposite REBa₂Cu₃O₇ (RE = rare earth) tapes: towards a new era of ultra-high field magnetism". The article is about the generation of high magnetic fields with the new superconducting materials that are being studied at the ICMAB, among other places. 

Mariano Campoy Quiles, Alex Ponrouch and M. Rosa Palacín participated in the meeting of the Royal Society about ‘Energy Materials for a Low Carbon Future’ held in September 2018, in the fields of "Organic Thermoelectrics" and "Post -Li batteries". The opinions were published then in the Philosophical Transaction of the Royal Society in July 2019. 

• The future circular collider (FCC), with a 100 km circumference ring, will extend the research currently being conducted at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in the search for new physics.
• High-temperature superconductors, such as YBCO, are being studied to be used as coating for the FCC ring instead of copper. Researchers have found that these materials outperform copper by a factor of 40, which would greatly enhance the FCC efficiency and provide big energy savings.
• The Superconducting Materials and Large Scale Nanostructures (SUMAN) group at the ICMAB-CSIC participates in this study as part of a consortium with the ALBA Synchrotron, the IFAE and the UPC.

Researchers of the Nanomol group of the Institute of Materials Science of Barcelona (ICMAB-CSIC), together with the company Nanomol Technologies S.L. have begun a consultation process with the Spanish Association of Medicines and Health Products (AEMPS) to try and enter a new treatment in a clinical studies stage, to fight against venous ulcers in lower extremities. The study is carried out within the framework of the RIS3CAT NANONAFRES project.

• Perovskites promise to be the next star material for solar cells, but the reason of their high efficiency is still unknown.
• Researchers at the Institute of Materials Science in Barcelona (ICMAB-CSIC) and the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin für Materialien und Energie (Germany) have demonstrated with a new microscopy technique that perovskites are not ferroelectric, as was thought.
• The new technique, patented by CSIC in 2017, is the direct piezoelectric force microscopy (DPFM) which, for the first time, is used in lead halide perovskite solar cells.

• The new Nature Index 2019 is out, and the data confirm the expected: ICMAB is the first CSIC center in research outputs per capita in the ranking, and the second in terms of research outputs.
• CSIC is the first research institute in Spain, and is ranked the 54th research institution worldwide, and the 4th government institution, in terms of research outputs.