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Digging the whole for the IoT wireless sensors in COVIDES vineyards | ICMAB-CSIC

ICMAB installs IoT wireless sensors in vineyards at the Penedès

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In the framework of the ERC PoC project OrGeVine, an expedition of ICMABers visited the vineyards of the cooperative COVIDES and installed several IoT devices.

Press Release, Project Results, Press Review

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Low-Temperature Sintering of l-Alanine-Functionalized Metallic Copper Particles Affording Conductive Films with Excellent Oxidative Stability

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Título : Low-Temperature Sintering of l-Alanine-Functionalized Metallic Copper Particles Affording Conductive Films with Excellent Oxidative Stability
Autores: H. Jessica Pereira*, C. Elizabeth Killalea, and David B. Amabilino
Citation and DOI:
ACS Appl. Electron. Mater. 2022, 4, 5, 2502–2515
Publication Date:May 3, 2022
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1021/acsaelm.2c00275
PlumX: Low-Temperature Sintering of l-Alanine-Functionalized Metallic Copper Particles Affording Conductive Films with Excellent Oxidative Stability
Here, the alpha amino acid l-alanine is employed as both a capping and stabilizing agent in the aqueous synthesis of submicron-sized metallic copper particles under ambient atmospheric conditions. The reduction of the copper(II) precursor is achieved using l-ascorbic acid (vitamin C) as the reducing agent. The nature of the complex formed between l-alanine and the copper(II) precursor, pH of the medium, temperature, and the relative proportion of capping agent are found to play a significant role in determining the size, shape, and oxidative stability of the resulting particles.

Molecular

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What the Fisica: new fresh science Youtube channel

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Video URL: https://youtu.be/rfOvkyRJu6c
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The channel, a project led by ICN2, features also some research made in ICMAB.

"What the Fisica" or #WTF is a new science Youtube channel in Spanish that offers a broad view about top research performed at ICN2 and neighbouring centres such as ICMAB, IFAE and IMB-CNM-CSIC. 

The UAB supports this channel not only by sharing content but also offering a space for the video recording. 

Outreach Videos, Breaking News

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Emergent Insulator–Metal Transition with Tunable Optical and Electrical Gap in Thin Films of a Molecular Conducting Composite

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Título : Emergent Insulator–Metal Transition with Tunable Optical and Electrical Gap in Thin Films of a Molecular Conducting Composite
Autores: Raphael Pfattner*, Elena Laukhina*, Jinghai Li, Rossella L. Zaffino, Núria Aliaga-Alcalde, Marta Mas-Torrent, Vladimir Laukhin, and Jaume Veciana*
Citation and DOI:
ACS Appl. Electron. Mater. 2022, 4, 5, 2432–2441
Publication Date:May 11, 2022
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1021/acsaelm.2c00224
PlumX: Emergent Insulator–Metal Transition with Tunable Optical and Electrical Gap in Thin Films of a Molecular Conducting Composite
Composites exhibit unique synergistic properties emerging when components with different properties are combined. The tuning of the energy bandgap in the electronic structure of the material allows designing tailor-made systems with desirable mechanical, electrical, optical, and/or thermal properties. Here, we study an emergent insulator–metal transition at room temperature in bilayered (BL) thin-films comprised of polycarbonate/molecular-metal composites. Temperature-dependent resistance measurements allow monitoring of the electrical bandgap, which is in agreement with the optical bandgap extracted by optical absorption spectroscopy.

Molecular

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Welcome Ana Conde Rubio at ICMAB!

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Nombre y apellidos: Ana Conde Rubio
Hello everyone! I am Ana Conde and I have recently joined the NANOPTO group to work on the DYNAMO project under the supervision of Dr. Agustín Mihi. Throughout my research career, I have been working on the nanofabrication of nanostructures for various applications including 2D material devices and plasmonics. Although I have been living in Switzerland for 3.5 years, my face might seem familiar to some of you from my PhD times, where I was a frequent visitor of CNM, ICN2, and ICMAB.

In my free time, most likely you’ll find me far away from the city, with my van, practicing outdoor sports such as trail running, ski-touring, or climbing. However, if it is raining, I might be cooking or baking to recover some energy :)

See you around!

Spain

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Dynamic control of octahedral rotation in perovskites by defect engineering

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Título : Dynamic control of octahedral rotation in perovskites by defect engineering
Autores: Jiahui Jia, Xu He, Arsalan Akhtar, Gervasi Herranz, and Miguel Pruneda
Citation and DOI: Phys. Rev. B 105, 224112 – Published 23 June 2022
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.105.224112
PlumX: Dynamic control of octahedral rotation in perovskites by defect engineering
Engineering oxygen octahedra rotation patterns in ABO3 perovskites is a powerful route to design functional materials. Here we propose a strategy that exploits point defects that create local electric dipoles and couple to the oxygen sublattice, enabling direct actuation on the rotational degrees of freedom. This approach, which relies on substituting an A site with a smaller ion, paves a way to couple dynamically octahedra rotations to external electric fields.

Oxides

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The winners of FOTICMAB 2022: rainbow, bridges and birds

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We share the winners of this years’ FOTICMAB contest! Which one is your favorite?
 
Our photo contest FOTICMAB2022 is over, the votes have been counted, the results are clear!
 
We appreciate the almost 100 participating pictures, it has been a very interesting edition with amazing photos! As a reminder, the winners of each category will receive one of the new official ICMAB sweatshirts!

Commemorations, Breaking News, Outreach & Dissemination

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Enhanced human T cell expansion with inverse opal hydrogels

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Título : Enhanced human T cell expansion with inverse opal hydrogels
Autores: Fabião Santos, Julia Valderas-Gutiérrez, Eduardo Pérez del Río, Miquel Castellote-Borrell, Xavier Rodriguez Rodriguez, Jaume Veciana, Imma Ratera and  Judith Guasch
Citation and DOI: Biomater. Sci., 2022, Advance Article
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1039/D2BM00486K
PlumX: Enhanced human T cell expansion with inverse opal hydrogels
Advanced personalized immunotherapies still have to overcome several biomedical and technical limitations before they become a routine cancer treatment in spite of recent achievements. In adoptive cell therapy (ACT), the capacity to obtain adequate numbers of therapeutic T cells in the patients following ex vivo treatment should be improved.

Biomaterials

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Sergi Martín will defend the PhD Thesis on 5 July

Sergi Martín will defend his PhD Thesis on 5 July 2022 at the UB

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Date : 2022-07-05

The PhD researcher Sergi Martín Rio, from the Advanced Characterization and Nanostructured Materials (ACNM) Group at ICMAB-CSIC, will defend his PhD thesis on Tuesday, 5 July 2022 at 11 am at the Physics Faculty at the Universitat de Barcelona (UB).

PhD Defense

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The solubility of helium in lead–lithium eutectic alloy

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Título : The solubility of helium in lead–lithium eutectic alloy
Autores: L. Sedano, G.A. Esteban, M. Cavaro, E. Iraola, A. Abdulrahman, L. Batete, M. Guasch
Citation and DOI: Nuclear Materials and Energy Volume 31, June 2022, 101185
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nme.2022.101185
PlumX: The solubility of helium in lead–lithium eutectic alloy
The helium production rates in liquid metals (Pb-Li eutectic alloy, LLE and others) Blanket Breeders (BB) are nearly mol-to-mol linked to tritium and intimately associated with the compulsory requirement of high tritium self-sufficiency of next fusion reactors. When LLE is oversaturated and the helium solubility limit is exceeded, helium atoms can nucleate in the form of bubbles. The presence of helium bubbles within LLE channels could have severe impact on the diverse BB designs, in particular on tritium transport permeation and its recovery.

Energy

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Water-Stable Carborane-Based Eu3+/Tb3+ Metal–Organic Frameworks for Tunable Time-Dependent Emission Color and Their Application in Anticounterfeiting Bar-Coding

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Título : Water-Stable Carborane-Based Eu3+/Tb3+ Metal–Organic Frameworks for Tunable Time-Dependent Emission Color and Their Application in Anticounterfeiting Bar-Coding
Autores: Zhen LiZhen Li, Rosario Núñez, Mark E. Light, Eliseo Ruiz, Francesc Teixidor, Clara Viñas, Daniel Ruiz-Molina, Claudio Roscini*, and José Giner Planas*
Citation and DOI:
Chem. Mater. 2022, 34, 10, 4795–4808
Publication Date:April 29, 2022
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.chemmater.2c00323
PlumX: Water-Stable Carborane-Based Eu3+/Tb3+ Metal–Organic Frameworks for Tunable Time-Dependent Emission Color and Their Application in Anticounterfeiting Bar-Coding
Luminescent lanthanide metal–organic frameworks (Ln-MOFs) have been shown to exhibit relevant optical properties of interest for practical applications, though their implementation still remains a challenge. To be suitable for practical applications, Ln-MOFs must be not only water stable but also printable, easy to prepare, and produced in high yields. Herein, we design and synthesize a series of mCB-EuyTb1–y (y = 0–1) MOFs using a highly hydrophobic ligand mCBL1: 1,7-di(4-carboxyphenyl)-1,7-dicarba-closo-dodecaborane. The new materials are stable in water and at high temperature.

Biomaterials

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Identifying structure–absorption relationships and predicting absorption strength of non-fullerene acceptors for organic photovoltaics

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Título : Identifying structure–absorption relationships and predicting absorption strength of non-fullerene acceptors for organic photovoltaics
Autores: Jun Yan, Xabier Rodríguez-Martínez, Drew Pearce, Hana Douglas, Danai Bili, Mohammed Azzouzi, Flurin Eisner, Alise Virbule, Elham Rezasoltani, Valentina Belova, Bernhard Dörling, Sheridan Few, Anna A. Szumska, Xueyan Hou, Guichuan Zhang, Hin-Lap Yip, Mariano Campoy-Quiles* and Jenny Nelson*
Citation and DOI: Energy Environ. Sci., 2022, Advance Article
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1039/D2EE00887D
PlumX: Identifying structure–absorption relationships and predicting absorption strength of non-fullerene acceptors for organic photovoltaics
Non-fullerene acceptors (NFAs) are excellent light harvesters, yet the origin of their high optical extinction is not well understood. In this work, we investigate the absorption strength of NFAs by building a database of time-dependent density functional theory (TDDFT) calculations of ∼500 π-conjugated molecules. The calculations are first validated by comparison with experimental measurements in solution and solid state using common fullerene and non-fullerene acceptors. We find that the molar extinction coefficient (εd,max) shows reasonable agreement between calculation in vacuum and experiment for molecules in solution, highlighting the effectiveness of TDDFT for predicting optical properties of organic π-conjugated molecules.

Energy

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Congratulations Dr. Martí Gibert, new ICMAB Graduate!

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Date : 2022-06-15

Doctor Martí Gibert, from the NANOPTO Group at ICMAB-CSIC, defended his PhD thesis titled "On Improving the Efficiency of Organic Photovoltaic Devices: Novel Strategies" on Wednesday, 15 June 2022. Congrats!

PhD Congrats

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You can now vote for the best FOTICMAB 2022 photo!

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Date : 2022-06-26
The voting is now open, and until Sunday 26 June at midnight. Vote so that the best photos can win!
 
Our photo and video contest FOTICMAB continues to strike back! The contest was open for all ICMAB members, from 13 May to 19 June 2022. And now it's time to vote, until the 26 June! 
 
This year we have three categories, and we have participants from each one:
 
  • SCIENTIFIC: 20 photos
  • ARTISTIC: 28 photos
  • FAUNA AND FLORA: 34 photos
Some of them are amazing! Thank you for participating with such nice pictures! 

Breaking News

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Water soluble organometallic small molecules as promising antibacterial agents: synthesis, physical–chemical properties and biological evaluation to tackle bacterial infections

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Título : Water soluble organometallic small molecules as promising antibacterial agents: synthesis, physical–chemical properties and biological evaluation to tackle bacterial infections
Autores: Ines Bennour, M. Núria Ramos, Miquel Nuez-Martínez, Jewel Ann Maria Xavier, Ana B. Buades, Reijo Sillanpää, Francesc Teixidor, Duane Choquesillo-Lazarte, Isabel Romero, Margarita Martinez-Medinad and Clara Viñas
Citation and DOI: Dalton Trans., 2022,51, 7188-7209
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1039/D2DT01015A
PlumX: Water soluble organometallic small molecules as promising antibacterial agents: synthesis, physical–chemical properties and biological evaluation to tackle bacterial infections
The Na[3,3′-Fe(8-I-1,2-C2B9H10)2] and Na[2,2′-M(1,7-C2B9H11)] (M = Co3+, Fe3+) small molecules are synthesized and the X-ray structures of [(H3O)(H2O)5][2,2′-Co(1,7-C2B9H11)2] and [Cs(MeCN)][8,8′-I2-Fe(1,2 C2B9H10)2], both displaying a transoid conformation of the [M(C2B9)2]− framework, are reported. Importantly, the supramolecular structure of [(H3O)(H2O)5][2,2′-Co(1,7-C2B9H11)2] presents 2D layers leading to a lamellar arrangement of the anions while the cation layers form polymeric water rings made of six- and four-membered rings of water molecules connected via OH⋯H hydrogen bonds; B–H⋯O contacts connect the cationic and anionic layers.

Biomaterials

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Matching electron transport layers with a non-halogenated and low synthetic complexity polymer:fullerene blend for efficient outdoor and indoor organic photovoltaics

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Título : Matching electron transport layers with a non-halogenated and low synthetic complexity polymer:fullerene blend for efficient outdoor and indoor organic photovoltaics
Autores: Xabier Rodríguez-Martínez, Sergi Riera-Galindo, * Jiayan Cong, Thomas Österberg, Mariano Campoy-Quiles and Olle Inganäsa
Citation and DOI: J. Mater. Chem. A, 2022,10, 10768-10779
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1039/D2TA01205G
PlumX: Matching electron transport layers with a non-halogenated and low synthetic complexity polymer:fullerene blend for efficient outdoor and indoor organic photovoltaics
The desired attributes of organic photovoltaics (OPV) as a low cost and sustainable energy harvesting technology demand the use of non-halogenated solvent processing for the photoactive layer (PAL) materials, preferably of low synthetic complexity (SC) and without compromising the power conversion efficiency (PCE). Despite their record PCEs, most donor–acceptor conjugated copolymers in combination with non-fullerene acceptors are still far from upscaling due to their high cost and SC. Here we present a non-halogenated and low SC ink formulation for the PAL of organic solar cells, comprising PTQ10 and PC61BM as donor and acceptor materials, respectively, showing a record PCE of 7.5% in blade coated devices under 1 sun, and 19.9% under indoor LED conditions.

Energy

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Phonon transport in the gigahertz to terahertz range: Confinement, topology, and second sound

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Título : Phonon transport in the gigahertz to terahertz range: Confinement, topology, and second sound
Autores: Thomas Vasileiadis, Juan Sebastian Reparaz, and Bartlomiej Graczykowski
Citation and DOI: Journal of Applied Physics 131, 180901 (2022)
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0073508
PlumX: Phonon transport in the gigahertz to terahertz range: Confinement, topology, and second sound

Transport of heat and hypersound with gigahertz (GHz) to terahertz (THz) phonons is crucial for heat management in electronics, mediating signal processing with microwave radiation, thermoelectrics, and various types of sensors based on nanomechanical resonators. Efficient control of heat and sound transport requires new materials, novel experimental techniques, and a detailed knowledge of the interaction of phonons with other elementary excitations.

Energy

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