Happy Holidays Webbversion

NEWSLETTER FROM NANOSCIENCE AT LUND UNIVERSITY  |  DECEMBER 2018

Happy Holidays The end of this year also marks the end of an era: 30 years after founding NanoLund in 1988, then named the Nanometer Structure Consortium, Lars Samuelson will be stepping down as NanoLund’s Vice Director at the end of the year. Lars will remain active in both research and as a valuable strategic advisor to the Centre, as well as in helping lead his several start-up companies. Nevertheless, this is an opportunity to express our deep thanks to and great appreciation for Lars’s work: without him and his enthusiastic, pioneering leadership, NanoLund would not exist and would certainly not have the same international standing, vibrant culture and excellent infrastructure and industry network. We also congratulate Lars on being awarded the prestigious and well-deserved Wilhelm Westrup's Prize just a couple of weeks ago (see below). Succeeding Lars in the role as Vice-Director will be Anders Mikkelsen, professor in Synchrotron Radiation Physics, who has been serving as Co-director already for several years. For all of us, the fall has again been a very busy season, with lots of teaching, the annual meeting, the season for NanoLund proposals and a myriad other things. I therefore very much hope that you will take a well deserved break with your families and friends over the holidays. Thank you for all your hard work with NanoLund, God Jul and a Happy New Year! Heiner Linke Director of NanoLund Annual Meeting The Annual Meeting 2018 on October 4th gathered a record breaking 200 participants. Visitors included the members of our Scientific Advisory Board, Board members and the External Advisory Council (left side picture). The meeting’s scientific focus was on Opportunities offered to NanoLund by MAX IV, ESS and Science Village and included a keynote by our new Scientific Advisory Board member Chi-Chang Kao from Stanford and SLAC, invited talks by NanoLund scientists and a session where experienced scientists with a range of backgrounds shared their visions for how NanoLund might develop in Science Village. The meeting was concluded with a dinner and prize awards where NanoLundians were acknowledged for their efforts in teaching, junior scientist ideas, excellent administrative and technical support, Life long service and poster presentation skills. Brilliant iron molecule - cheaper solar? A group of researchers involving NanoLund Members A Yartsev, J Uhlig, V Sundström, P Persson and K Wärnmark have succeeded in creating an iron molecule that can function both as a photocatalyst to produce fuel and in solar cells to produce electricity. The results indicate that the iron molecule could replace the more expensive and rarer metals used today. Read more here and in Science. Cover of Nature Nanotechnology The front cover of the October issue of Nature Nanotechnology is decorated by an illustration from an article by NanoLund researchers who experimentally demonstrated a quantum-dot heat engine in which only electrons at a specific energy flow between the reservoirs generating an electric current. The image on the cover is an artist’s impression of a nanowire that contains the quantum dot, with the hot and cold reservoirs coloured in red and blue respectively. The article describes how a quantum dot-based heat engine can convert heat directly into work with an efficiency very close to the fundamental Carnot limit. Read the article "A quantum-dot heat engine operating close to the thermodynamic efficiency limits" by M Josefsson, A Svilans, AM Burke, EA Hoffmann, S Fahlvik, C Thelander, M Leijnse & H Linke or find more information here. Night of Culture Each year on the third Saturday in September, Lund welcomes more than 50,000 people to Kulturnatten. This year NanoLund participated by giving introductory lectures on nanotechnology, lab tours and demonstrations. Additional more in-depth talks were also given on different areas of nanotechnology. An estimated 200 visitors came to both the nanoscience table at Sölvegatan and the demonstrations/lab tours in the Department of Physics. Seedling projects call 2019 NanoLund is happy to announce a new opportunity to apply for funds for seedling projects, to try out a new idea. Funds of up to 100 000 kronor per project are available. In addition to project funding, each Junior scientist responsible for a granted proposal will receive the Junior Scientist Ideas Award at the NanoLund annual meeting. Projects can be proposed by masters students, PhD students or postdocs currently working in NanoLund research group. Deadline: 21st of January 2019, midnight For details, rules and proposal format, please click here. Introduction to NanoLund NanoLund would like to invite new employees to an Introduction to NanoLund event Monday January 28, 2019 from 14:00 to 16:30. The location is the seminar room k-space in the Division of Solid State Physics. The event is open to everyone who has joined NanoLund relatively recently: PhD students, postdocs, administrative and technical staff - and all who always wanted to know more. Deadline for registration (sign up here): January 24, 2019 Join us for After Work downtown Lund from 16:45! News on NanoLund people Jesper Wallentin wins ERC starting grant NanoLund researcher Jesper Wallentin has been granted an ERC starting grant.  His project will investigate whether semiconductor nanowires can be used as high resolution X-ray detectors. Wallentins group have some initial results that show that they can get a measurable electric current from single nanowires that are exposed to X-rays. Long term, the hope is that nanostructured X-ray detectors could be used for X-ray microscopy with much better resolution than current systems. The grant will finance one PhD student, one postdoc, part of Jespers salary and an X-ray lab and allow research to go from initial results to a full study of the potential of nanowires as X-ray detectors. Wilhelm Westrup's prize awarded to Lars Samuelson The Royal Physiographical Society of Lund has awarded the 2018 Wilhelm Westrup Prize 2018 to Lars Samuelson. The prize of 1 million kronor is awarded only every five years for scientific work that leads to industrial applications, and was awarded for Lars’ work with semiconductor nanowires and for initiating and leading their commercialization by Glo AB and SolVoltaics AB. Additions to Lund Nano Lab Lund Nano Lab has made some strong additions by hiring three Research Engineers. New staff members are Alexander, Sarah and Rong. Alexander den Ouden has joined us from Netzsch Gerätebau GmbH and will work with the EPI equipment as well as a few other areas. Alexander’s educational background is in Chemical Engineering Technology and he brings a strong background from industry to the team. Sarah McKibbin has joined us from Synchrotron Radiation Research where she has spent 5 years as a postdoctoral researcher. She will work on lithography to start with and then later on plasma etch. While Sarah is on maternity leave Rong Sun will fill in. Rong defended her thesis on "Understanding the Role of Seed Particle Material on III-As Nanowire Growth" in August and will be with us for a year. Best poster awards Four NanoLund PhD students have won Best Poster awards over the summer. Malin Alsved and Louise Gren both won ”Overall top poster contest winner” at the 10th International Aerosol Conference in Saint Louis, USA in September 2018, Irene Geijselaers won the best student poster award at the 34th International Conference on the Physics of Semiconductors (ICPS) in Montpellier, France and Calle Preger was awarded with ”Best Poster Award” at the conference on Aerosol Technology in Bilbao. SPIE Scholarship NanoLund PhD student Mohammad Karimi has been selected to receive the SPIE Optics and Photonics Education Scholarship for his potential contributions to the field of optics, photonics or related field. SPIE is the international society for optics and photonics, an educational not-for-profit organization founded in 1955 to advance light-based science, engineering, and technology. Read the SPIE press release here. Sara Linse wins World Championships NanoLund scientists are successful in more than “just” nanosience: our warmest congratulations to our Board member and scientist Sara Snogerup Linse for winning gold over both the Middle and the Long distance in her age group in the World Masters Orienteering Championships this summer. It’s great to see great science balanced by great sports! Highly Cited Researchers 2018 List The list of Global Highly Cited Researchers 2018 recognizes world-class researchers selected for their exceptional research performance, demonstrated by production of multiple highly cited papers that rank in the top 1% by citations for field and year in Web of Science. NanoLund researchers Sara Snogerup Linse and Lars Samuelson are both on the list. Method development grants  The Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research has published the recipients of grants for instrument-, technology- or method development. Christelle Prinz and Eva Unger are funded by for their projects on Nanowires for reprogramming stem cells (Christelle Prinz) and materials growth (Eva Unger). Read more here. Follow us on Twitter NanoLund has a twitter account. Follow us @NanoLund Did we miss something? Do you have a story, a discovery or an event we should include in our newsletter? Please use the Contact link below.

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