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Outreach

The Nanopto Group is YouTuber!

The Nanostructured Materials for Optoelectronics and Energy Harvesting (NANOPTO) research group, which focuses on producing and characterizing advanced semiconducting structures for optoelectronics and energy-related and sensing devices, has started using one the most popular techniques for scientific outreach: YouTube!

Anna
Anna
18 November 2020

On September 2020 the Youtube channel of the Nanopto group was created. The main idea of the channel is to show the insides of the laboratories and techniques used by the group in their daily work, as well as some tips and tricks of some equipment and softare, and showing interesting talks or experiments to the whole scientific community, including students who want to start their research work. 

The Youtube manager is Adrián Francisco, a former PhD researcher and currently Postdoctoral researcher in the same Nanopto Group. We have asked him some questions about the Nanopto Youtube. Continue reading to know more. 

Why has the Nanopto group started a YouTube channel?

The Nanopto Youtube channel started with the idea of creating a tab in the Nanopto webpage where we could introduce physics theory related to our work, in an easy to understand way, so different people interested in science, prospective students, or our own group could learn from it. Following that idea it was suggested to add manuals and tutorials on how to use the equipment we have, or the software we use, again to spread the knowledge, but mainly to share internally the know-how, tips and tricks inside our own group. The idea was that everybody in Nanopto could easily access to info and visual guides related to the equipment that we can use in our laboratories, and thus, becoming more autonomous and optimizing time.
 
 
Also, some people in the group had already produced scientific videos, so we thought that we could actually perform the task of keeping the know-how inside the group, even after the students or the researchers involved moved away, and merge it with the idea of scientific outreach by creating a Youtube channel with software tutorials, laboratory step by step guides, online talks from conferences, theses, and other more divulgative videos and animations.

What can we find in the Nanopto Youtube channel?

As for now, we have three video-tutorials on Fityk, which is a free program used to fit spectra, a divulgative video about a new scientific concept called molecular gates, developed by A. Perevedentsev and M. Campoy, and several laboratory step by step guides related to the fabrication of organic solar cells, thermoelectric devices and high pressure experiments by Paula Pamies, Miquel Casademont, A.Goñi, Kai Xu and A. Francisco. Also, we have a video on how to edit and upload the videos to Youtube! (So  the people in our group can do it, even in case that the handsome actual account manager, Adrian Francisco, leaves the group...).

There are also two online conference talks by Xabier R. and Martí G., entitled "High-throughput optimizacion of organic solar cells using a novel microfluidic-assisted blade coating platform" and "Near infrared organic photodetectors based on enhanced charge transfer state absorption by photonic architectures", respectively. Also, an animation is almost ready showing how the high pressure experiments are done in our laboratories, including the loading of liquid Helium at superfluid temperatures as a pressure transmitting media, and a video showing the real steps of this process in the actual laboratory.

How do you think that the Nanopto videos can contribute to science?

I think they can make real science available to everybody, spread our newest discoveries and advances, attract prospective students, and help us create networks that can crystalize in new collaborations.

 What are your plans with the channel?

In an awesome ideal world, everybody in the group would make one or two videos at least, showing the equipment or software that they have been mastering during years. That would mean really a lot of videos for the channel!!. Plus we will upload more talks, theses, or any other scientific-related idea that we have. There won't be an average publication schedule, but if I have several videos to publish at once, I would probably program them so they get published one each week, so this way it can help increase the suscriptions to the channel. So... you know, don't forget to like, comment and subscribe! (Sorry, I had to say it).

 Who do you think would be interested in your videos?

General public interested in science, interested in what is really going on inside a real laboratory, other research groups so they can know what are we doing at the moment or what are we able to do, and finally to ourselves, so we have an easy-to-access platform where we store our know-how and tips and it doesn't get lost when someone leaves.

Take a look at the Nanopto Youtube videos, and enjoy! 

youtube nanopto

  

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