News

INL DG pays tribute to a forgotten enabler: vacuum

Lars Montelius, Director-General (DG) of INL was interviewed by Physics World as President of IUVSTA – International Union for Vacuum Science, Technique and Applications and took the opportunity to underline the irreplaceable relevance of vacuum to modern science. By the occasion of IUVSTA 60th Anniversary, INL DG was happy to acknowledge that vacuum is now a technique so common which unfortunately leads to people to forget about how important it is. “Simply speaking, without vacuum many industries would not exist”, giving the semiconductor industry as an example. Nanotechnology is also a major beneficiary from the vacuum since it “is important if you want to understand materials at a very small scale”. And all this starts from a paradox: most of the things you now take for granted and so significantly changed your life for the better came from the void enabled by vacuum. And speaking about paradoxes, in this interview, Lars Montelius also notes “there is a gap emerging between being a heavy user of technology and being interested in contributing to developing that technology further”, adding that we need to “get more people into the field”. You can read the full interview here.

INL takes the discussion on Nanotechnology to Australia

Lars Montelius, INL Director General, will take part as a speaker on a series of scientific events in Australia, highlighting the role of Nanotechnology as a key enabler for a better future. The first one, about Connected Science for the Society, will take place next August 12th, at the Sidney Science Festival, for the general public. During this major event celebrating STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Mathematics), within the session “Invisible Forces: Changing the World”, Lars Montelius will focus on advances in Nanotechnology and Advanced Materials that are playing a profound role for the last few decades in the development of modern society paving the way for the present Digitalization agec and leading to major societal developments that challenge society. All these changes foster disruptive innovations, which will be subject to reflection and discussion during this initiative where INL is proud to be present. On the August 13th, INL Director, who is also President of IUVSTA – International Union for Vacuum Science, Technique and Applications, will deliver a talk on the same topic for a scientific audience, at the 9th Vacuum and Surface Science Conference of Asia and Australia, where on the afternoon of the same day, Lars Montelius […]

INL research on quantum materials in the cover of top Physics journal

INL researchers from the group of Theory of Quantum Nanostructures have proposed a new type of spintronic device concept, based on ferromagnetic proximity effect in two-dimensional crystals. The INL researchers have modelled how the electronic properties of graphene bilayer change from conducting to insulating depending on the relative orientation of the magnetisation of two adjacent magnetic layers. The results have been published in Physical Review Letters (PRL) and have been selected as Editors’ suggestion, making the cover for August 2018 edition. PRL is one of the worldwide most regarded journals on Physics by the scientific community, where only a minor fraction of the suggested papers are selected for publication by the Editors.

Join INL as MSCA Fellow!

INL is looking for talented researchers eager to work in our cutting-edge, multicultural organisation. Individual Fellowships (IF) provide funding to researchers of any nationality to acquire and transfer new knowledge and to work on research and innovation in Europe. Applicable MSCA IF types: Standard European Fellowships, Career Restart Panel, Reintegration Panel and Widening Fellowships. For further information please click here.

INL showcases nanotechnology developments in Chile

INL presented the latest trends on nanotechnology applied to the food sector in a seminar promoted by Chilean organisation CREAS (Regional Center for Studies on Healthy Food) on how science and technology can help the productive sector to have a better performance. Also, the INL Head of Life Sciences, Lorenzo Pastrana, participated in a meeting with representatives of the Regional Government of Valparaiso to show the collaboration INL-CREAS as a success case, underlining the importance of the public body funding agencies to support the connexion between academy and industry. The initiative, that took place last June 28th and 29th at Valparaiso and Viña del Mar, Valparaíso Region, Chile, also gathered other specialists from Chile and Portugal to discuss how science will play a key role to take innovation to the market.

INL research gets Best Poster Award in USA

At the World Conference on Photovoltaic Energy Conversion (WCPEC-7) held last month from June 10-15 in Waikoloa, Hawaii, USA, Sascha Sadewasser, INL Principal Investigator of the Laboratory for Nanostructured Solar Cells, presented the most recent results of a collaborative work between his group and the group of Prof. Philip Dale from the University of Luxembourg. The poster presentation with the title “Area-selective electrodeposition of Cu(In,Ga)Se2 micro-islands for micro-concentrator solar cells” was awarded a Best Poster Award by the organizers. The work shows a proof-of-concept demonstration of a photovoltaic technology which is capable of reaching higher power conversion efficiencies with lower materials consumption of the Cu(In,Ga)Se2 absorber layer.

In Situ Atomic-Scale Study provides new insights into crystal nucleation and growth mechanisms

Junjie Li and Francis Leonard Deepak from the AEMIS Department along with Zhongchang Wang – QMST Department in collaboration with international researchers have carried out In situ atomic-scale studies to clarify nucleation and growth mechanisms of nanocrystals. Understanding nucleation and growth at the atomic scale is of great interest to scientists in many disciplines. However, fulfilling direct atomic-scale observation is still a significant challenge. In their recently reported study in the leading international journal Advanced Science using Bi as a model system, they employed electron beam irradiation within an aberration-corrected TEM to unveil the non-classical mechanism of crystal nucleation and growth. These findings are expected to help advance the general understanding of the dynamic process of nucleation of materials and phase transformations at the atomic scale.

PhD’s students from INL awarded at the 40th International Conference on Environmental & Food Monitoring

INLers Soraia Fernandes and Monisha Elumalai were awarded at the 40th International Conferences on Environmental & Food Monitoring, held this month in Santiago de Compostela, Spain. Soraia Fernandes, a PhD student, working with our Nanochemistry and Water Quality Research Groups, won the “Roland W. Frei” Poster Award for “Novel magnetic covalent organic framework composites for the absorption of diarrheic shellfish poisoning toxins.” Monisha Elumalai, a PhD students, working with INL’s Food Quality and Safety Research Group, won the best young researcher oral presentation by the ISEAC-40 organisation for “Early detection of zebra mussel assisted by modified gold nanoparticle amplification”. Congratulations to both, it is with great pride that we testimony INLers achievements!

EuroNanoLab scales up nanostructuration in Europe

EuroNanoLab is an initiative to establish a large-scale distributed nanofabrication research infrastructure, and INL’s Cleanroom is one of the facilities available. This initiative brings together most of the European academic clean rooms, the place where future technology is already happening. Gabriel Chardin, from CNRS, the consortium coordinating organisation, explains why this is a major step towards a new era, in an opinion article you may read here.