Press

The creation of SOMMa will allow research centres and units to increase their impact, foster their cooperation, work as a network, and enrich the R+D system as a whole. SOMMa has presented the document “SOMMa Position Paper: Actions required to safeguard science competitiveness”, which aims at drawing the attention of politicians to tackle some of the current administrative issues urgently and in a long-lasting manner.

ICMAB researchers have designed ultrathin materials that maximize the absorption of light in a large range of the solar spectrum. The followed strategy, low cost and fully scalable, is based on combining the thin layer deposition of semiconductors on metals, and the nanostructuring of the material forming photonic crystals. The obtained superabsorbers materials have many potential applications, especially in the field of photovoltaic energy and photodetection.

An article about the research in perovskite appeared in "Televisión Nacional de Honduras" website, citing ICMAB, together with other research centers in Spain, where advanced research in this material is done: "Spain is one of the countries in which research (in the development of perovskite) is more advanced.

Apart from the research group in the Institute of Materials Science in Sevilla, there are many more groups specialized in its study, in the University Jaume I of Castelló, the Institute of Molecular Science (University of Valencia), the Institute of Materials Science of Barcelona (ICMAB-CSIC), the Catalan Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (ICN2), the University Pablo de Olavide in Sevilla, and the Catalan Institue of Chemical Research (ICIQ)."

This news article, appeared at nanotechweb.org websitee (IOP publishing), features a publication recently published by Agustín Mihi and his team in Advanced Materials "Ultrathin Semiconductor Superabsorbers from the Visible to the Near-Infrared" (Pau Molet, Juan Luis Garcia-Pomar, Cristiano Matricardi, Miquel Garriga, Maria Isabel Alonso and Agustín Mihi). DOI: 10.1002/adma.201705876.

Nanostructuring a thin layer of the semiconductor germanium using a technique called nanoimprinting lithography can greatly boost the amount of light it absorbs across the visible to near-infrared wavelengths. The broadband absorption comes from the strong interplay between Brewster and photonic crystal modes in the material and the effect could benefit optoelectronics applications such as photovoltaics and telecommunications.

This article appeared in Physics Berkeley website on Tuesday, January 16, 2018. 

We transcribe it here, since some previous ICMAB members participated in the study, which was recently published in PNAS: Emergent chirality in the electric polarization texture of titanate superlattices (Padraic Shafer, Pablo García-Fernández,Pablo Aguado-Puente,Anoop R. Damodaran , Ajay K. Yadav, Christopher T. Nelson, Shang-Lin Hsu, Jacek C. Wojdeł, Jorge Íñiguez, Lane W. Martin, Elke Arenholz, Javier Junquer, and Ramamoorthy Ramesh). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1711652115.

• Xanthinuria is a rare disease caused by the accumulation of xanthine in blood, which can lead to serious pathologies, such as renal failure or gout.
• ICMAB researchers have prepared a novel hybrid graphene-based electrochemical biosensor for the fast and 100 times more sensitive detection of xanthine, with respect to previously reported sensors.
• The study, published in the journal Advanced Materials Interfaces, combines the properties of reduced graphene oxide and those of the organic radicals to prepare next generation, low cost electrochemical biosensors.

Researchers from ALBA Synchrotron and from ICMAB have established an enriching and fruitful collaboration over the years, which is proven by the number of publications published together since ALBA received its first users, in 2012.

In 2017, 24 publications appeared in collaboration between both institutions, which represented a 21 % of the ALBA Synchrotron articles. 

A recent publication in Advanced Functional Materials by Dr. Marta Mas-Torrent and her team has been chosen to be highlighted on Advanced Science News website. The group is working on the development of high-performance electrolyte-gated field-effect transistors (EGOFETs), electronic devices capable of working in aqueous environment. 

The list of the top 10 articles published in the highest impact factor (IF) journals, by ICMAB researchers during the year 2017 are the following:

The last post of this series about the most cited articles month per month of year 2017. Herein, the most cited ones from November and December 2017.

A year in review: this post continues with the series of the most cited articles in every month of 2017. Here we feature the most cited articles of September and October 2017. 

A year in review: we continue in this post with the series of the most cited articles of every month of the year 2017. In this post we will see the most cited articles corresponding to the months of June, July and August 2017.

A year in review: we start here a series of the most cited article written by ICMAB researchers during 2017, month by month. In this post, you will find the most cited article of January, February and March 2017. 

The last issue (number 16) of the Digital CSIC journal "CSIC Abierto" includes two interviews with ICMAB's Documentalist and Librarian, Alejandro Santos, and with ICMAB Researcher at the NANOPTO Group, Dr. Mariano Campoy-Quiles. The interviews deal with the Open Access mandates adopted by the funding agencies and the experience at ICMAB on accomplishing these mandates. 

This current 12-month Index, corresponding to year 2016, shows Barcelona's leading institutions for high-quality science ordered by the number of articles published (AC) in a list of science journals, and the number of authors of each institution, considering the percentage of authorship in each article (WFC) (with the correction of the centers dedicated to space science, which have a lot of coauthrs in the articles). 

The July-September issue of the Revista Española de Física (Vol 31, No 3) includes a monogaph of 41 pages on Condensed Matter. Some ICMAB researchers have contributed in some of the articles.

You can download in this post the articles of the monograph, with the permission of the journal. If you become a member of the RSEF you'll be able to read all the journal!

The main objectives and results of the EUROTAPES European project are featured in the Catalunya Informació radio program "Som com som: un espai d'innovació i talent" with Purificació Barceló. Prof. Xavier Obradors and Prof. Teresa Puig explain some of the main features of the project:

Mariona Coll was interviewed by the Catalan Television el9TV, in the talk show "7dies", for her Research Award "For Women in Science" L'Oréal-Unesco. The program was emmited on December 1, 2017. Watch here here: http://el9nou.cat/video/mariona-coll/

The August 2017 edition of the Research*EU magazine featured an interesting overview of the ACMOL project, which is working to develop graphene-based spintronics for next-gen molecular electronic devices. This article held that ‘Spintronics, molecular electronics and graphene have a common trait: they are all considered as key enablers in the future of computing beyond the limitations of Moore’s and Kryder’s laws. The ACMOL project is contributing to their joint advancement with proof-of-concept devices.’

Since the 1950's, magnetic materials have been used to store all kinds of information. The use of magnetic materials is ideal since they allow you to store information for very long periods of time and, moreover, information is easily accessible through well-known reading methods.

However, when storing sensitive information, easy access to information becomes a drawback rather than an advantage, and that's when hiding information becomes a necessity.

A multi-disciplinary collaboration between research centers in Spain and Holland, led by the Catalan Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (ICN2) and the Institute of Materials Science of Madrid (ICMM-CSIC), in collaboration with the Debye Institute for Nanomaterials Science of Utrecht University and the Institute of Materials Science of Barcelona (ICMAB), has resulted in the formation of highly-porous metal-organic framework particles that spontaneously assemble into well-ordered 3D superstructures that present photonic crystal properties. Published in Nature Chemistry, their discoveries are expected to find applications in the design of novel photonic materials for sensing applications, among others.

Two Scientific Highlights with the participation of ICMAB researchers are featured in the ALBA Synchrotron Activity Report 2016.

ICMAB-CSIC researchers are able, for the first time, to measure the very small amounts of charge generated in piezoelectric materials with an inverse use of the atomic force microscope (AFM). The technique, published in Nature Communications, has been implemented by incorporating a new device to the microscope that allows measuring electric currents one billion times smaller than the ones circulating in an LED.

Xavier Obradors, ICMAB Director and Researcher at the Superconducting Materials and Large Scale Nanostrucures (SUMAN) Group, participated in a roundtable "from Lab to Fab" at an ICN2 Severo Ochoa Workshop in June 2017. The roundtable discussion was chaired by ICN2 Business Development Officer, Nadia Pons.

According to EcoDiario.es, the Institute of Materials Science of Barcelona (ICMAB) increased from 170 to 202 employees from 30 November 2011 to 31 July 2017, which represents an increase of nearly 19 %. 

The Catalan universities and research centers have rejected the intervention of the public accounts by the Spanish Ministry of Finance and have denounced that this measure violates the principle of university autonomy.

One of the projects of Dr. Anna Laromaine, ICMAB researcher in the Nanoparticles and Nanocomosites Group (NN), is featured on EU Research Digital Magazine. The article focuses on one of her projects involving the synthesis and evaluation of nanoparticles in 3D environments: 3DinvitroNPC. 

• Using ALBA’s synchrotron light, researchers have been able to visualise deformation (sound) waves in crystals and measured the effect on nanomagnetic elements.
• The study, published today in Nature Communications, uses the accelerators’ time structure to record time resolved images with a resolution of 80 picoseconds.
• The methodology offers a new approach for analysing dynamic strains in other research fields: nanoparticles, chemical reactions, crystallography, etc.

ICMAB researchers lead a study on the toxicity of iron oxide nanoparticles based on the analysis of specific genetic markers linked to nanotoxicity in the C. elegans organisms.

Part of the experiment, published in the journal Nanotoxicology, has been carried out at the ALBA Synchrotron, in its infrared light MIRAS beamline. The study suggests that nanoparticles can be captured by intestinal cells in their interior, they can interact with cell lipids, and they can activate cellular mechanisms of oxidative stress.

The Institute of Materials Science of Barcelona (ICMAB) has become a new member of the European network of science centres and museums ECSITE, which was created more than 25 years ago to foster creativity and critical thinking in European society, emboldening citizens to engage with science. 

Jordi Faraudo, from the Theory and Simulation Group, is an invited researcher at the Earth Life Science Institute (ELSI) inTokyo (Japan). There he will work together with international and local researchers to investigate the fomation of complex molecules from simple molecules with selfassembly models. The news appeared in La Vanguardia and in El Periódico:

The Revista de Física, from the Real Sociedad Española de Física - RSEF, includes in its second number of 2017 an article about the Institute of Materials Science of Barcelona (ICMAB), within the section "Nodos de la Física".

The radio programme "Tercer Harmònic" from Radio Kanal Barcelona is a science and technology outreach programme for the general public. Communications, radio, digital education, internet, social networks, etc. are some of the main topics. Ignasi Fina, from the MULFOX group, was at the programme on May 16, 2018, in the section "The materials of the future" to talk about antiferromagnetic materials. 

The TV program Verd Primera, from betevé, has emitted on May 8th, a short video report on superconducting materials.