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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.

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.

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.

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.

Plug and play anisotropy-based nanothermometers

The Ultrafast Bio and Nanophotonics group have developed a novel Plug and Play Nanothermosensor technology with relevance for molecular biochemistry at INL, led by J. Nieder and international collaborators. The novel technique allows a new level of access to measure temperate at the molecular scale. Read the full article in ACS Photonics.

Little scientists share their experiences at INL

INL and the University of Minho, partners of “Try to Share” Project, developed by Biblioteca Escolar Porto Maia da EB2,3 of Real, aims to allow children to build scientific experiments and lab activities based on the scientific method, defining objectives, material, procedures and conclusions of each experiment. After one year of hard work, 110 small scientists from Real School Grouping set up a conference in the INL garden – Outdoor Lab – where they presented posters, made scientific demonstrations and answered questions from the audience. To finish the day, the little scientists plant a tree in INL’s garden to symbolise a seed for education. This event was also scheduled for the World Humanist Day to celebrate the first year of the project.

CLIB students win entrepreneurship competition with INL support

A team of students from CLIB – Colégio Luso Internacional de Braga recently won the 11th National Competition, promoted by Junior Achievement Portugal, the Portuguese chapter of the oldest organization in the world promoting education for entrepreneurship. The five 10th graders – four girls and one boy -, mentored by INLer João Piteira, will represent Portugal in the European Competition, that will take place next 16th to 19th of July in Belgrade, Serbia, with the mini-company “Extinctus Enterprise”. This project was inspired by the response to the tragic forest fires that hit Portugal in 2017. The technology prototype, developed with INL support, is an underground Ignis Capsule containing a radio, a battery and a temperature sensor. In case of fire, it detects the heat and sends a signal to firefighters. Another CLIB team – also from the 10th grade – mentored by INLers Dmitri Petrovykh, Cláudia Sousa and Eurico Moreira, got the second place in the same competition with the SOS – Seniors On Surveillance project, for developing the concept of a high-tech Safelet bracelet equipped with alert buttons and sensors to promote independence, autonomy and safety for senior citizens. In addition to the technical mentoring, INLer Francisco Guimarães helped […]

Covalent organic frameworks capture pharmaceutical pollutants from water

A team of scientists from the Nanochemistry and Water Quality groups at INL, CRSTRA in Algeria, LMU in Germany, and GalChimia in Spain have developed a fluorine-bearing covalent organic framework (COF), and showed, for the first time, that this class of materials can be used to capture pharmaceutical pollutants from water. Lipophilic pharmaceuticals, such as ibuprofen, were adsorbed from the water with high efficiency and completely recovered by simple solvent exchange. As opposed to many other adsorbents such as activated carbon, the developed COF can be efficiently recycled for reuse. Read the full article in Chemistry-A European Journal.