Merely weeks are left of 2022 – a truly strange and remarkable year in which we all have experienced things we might not have expected.
Before it is time to wrap it up, we would like to wish you all a peaceful holiday with those close to you, by bringing you this somewhat christmassy picture of “Fluorescent microparticles migrating in a sound field. Overlay of six consecutive frames” by Per Augustsson, one of our principal investigator at NanoLund.
We want to wish all of you a well-deserved rest from work, and hope to see all of you again, soon,
Maria Messing, Anneli Löfgren and Anders Mikkelsen,
for the leadership of NanoLund
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Sweden has a big opportunity to contribute with competitive semiconductor technologies needed for the digital and green transition. But national coordination is crucial.
Next week, Lund University is hosting a meeting at the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences (IVA) – where a team from NanoLund and LTH together with partners will present a report on the need for a national agenda and competence centre for semiconductors – stay tuned.
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193 applications were submitted in the first PhD and postdoc project call from which 90 projects have been granted funding. The projects are awarded in total 260 million SEK by the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation (KAW) for a period of up to four years. Awarded projects are distributed broadly across seven universities.
“The granted projects are of very high quality and relevance for sustainability and are carried out by prominent researchers in each project's research area,” says Magnus Berggren, WISE Program Director – the Wallenberg Initiative Material Science for Sustainability.
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There is still much we don’t know about the tiny plastic particles thought to be all around us. In a new study, Tommy Cedervall and his research group show that the rate of degradation may be faster for nanoplastics than for larger plastic debris. The reason is that UV radiation plays a role in the degradation process, and the radiation seems to have a greater effect on smaller particles.
“This is because the particles have so much surface area in relation to their mass. It is a large fraction of the particles that are hit by the UV rays,” says biochemistry researcher Tommy Cedervall, who is leading the project “Environmental impact of nanoplastics from degraded ordinary plastic articles” funded by the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency.
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With the help of mirrors, placed only a few hundred nanometers apart, a research team led by NanoLundian Tönu Pullerits has managed to use light more efficiently. The finding could eventually be useful for studying solar energy conversion during photosynthesis, or other reactions driven by light. One application could for example be converting carbon dioxide into fuel.
The research team has previously been able to show that with ultrafast laser spectroscopy, and the help of advanced materials, it would be possible to reduce the levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere in the long term. In their latest study, the team has made new progress when it comes to taking advantage of the light.
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Yen-Po Liu, Lukas Hrachowina, and Sven Dorsch are the first receivers of the NanoLund Distinction Prize. It is awarded to PhD students within the NanoLund environment who have shown particular dedication to research, education, and outreach activities, have acquired broad knowledge within nanoscience research and its societal relevance and impact, and have demonstrated research independence and leadership.
– We are proud to announce that the first students now have passed this challenge and acknowledge their efforts with the first NanoLund distinctions, says Jens Uhlig, NanoLund Education coordinator and head of the committee who reviews all applications.
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“Industry versus Academia” was the theme for this year’s NanoLund student retreat. It took place in Höllviken with more than 85 participants attending the exciting program.
This year’s Nanolund student retreat in Höllviken had more than 85 student members, PhD students, and postdocs participating, taking the prize of the most attended retreat so far! The theme of the retreat was “Industry versus Academia”, and included speakers sharing their expertise, personal experiences, and different perspectives from both worlds of academia and industry.
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Research groups within NanoLund describe their research as inspiration and invitation to contact them about master thesis projects. Methods and research subjects are listed as short tags to facilitate a quicker orientation.
The topics for master/diploma projects include a large variety, e.g. materials science, quantum physics, and nanobio.
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NanoLund keeps growing and has more than 100 research groups at the end of 2022. We currently have 58 faculty members and 48 affiliated faculty members. In 2022 we welcomed more than a dozen new members.
New faculty members:
New affiliated faculty members:
- Darcy Wagner, Lung Bioengineering and Regeneration
- Cord Arnold, Atomic physics
- Per Augustsson, Biomedical Engineering
- Maria Sandsten, Mathematical Statistics
- Erik Swietlicki, Nuclear physics
- Pontus Nordenfelt, Infection Medicine
- Lars Ohlsson Fhager, Nano Electronics
- Karen Edler, Centre for Analysis and Synthesis
- Martin Hjort, Chemical Biology and Therapeutics
- Hanna Isaksson, Biomedical Engineering
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