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Keeping Up with Chemists

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Konferencijos_CCT_zenklas_RGB.cdrConference „Chemistry & Chemical Technology 2016“ (CCT 2016) took place in Lithuanian Academy of Science on April 28-29, 2016. It was dedicated to the 210th anniversary of the electrolysis theory proposed by Theodor von Grotthuss, who had lived in Lithuania for many years. European Physical Society Young Minds Section of Vilnius University (EPS YM Vilnius) successfully took part in the organising by helping Lithuanian Chemistry Society with sharing the knowledge of conference management and even presenting some or at least listening to our neighbors’ presentations from the field of chemistry and chemical sciences.

260 scientists from variety of countries took part in CCT 2016, moreover, a big number of young researchers were among the participants, thus it was a great chance for EPS YM Vilnius to connect and discuss future possibilities in both out-reach and research. The first day was dedicated to electrochemistry, while the second one for other areas of chemistry. The newest research was presented by known European electrochemists from Estonia, Germany, Lithuania, Poland, and Sweden. The conference chair discussed the development of the electrochemistry in Lithuania in XX century in his presentation. As mentioned before, Theodor von Grotthuss is believed to be very influential scientist who actually also had some impact in physics as well, in addition to scientific presentations one of the professors introduced the audience to Grotthuss’ works. The speakers from Vilnius University, Kaunas University of Technology, FTMC and industrial representatives presented their research in organic, inorganic, polymer synthesis, applied chemistry, nanotechnology and chemical technology. The total of 6 keynote lectures, 11 invited presentations and 12 oral presentations were given in the conference. More information can be found at the conference website http://cct2016.ftmc.lt.

Chemistry and chemical technologies are very important part of the scientific world. Great advancements have been made in recent years so huge potential for interdisciplinary research and collaboration between physicists and chemists arise. The benefits are hoped to be felt in the number of chemists participating in the international conference for physics of natural sciences “Open Readings” as well.

Interdisciplinary seminars on technological applications of nanomaterials

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seminThe EPS YM Section of University of Calabria has organized a cycle of seminars aimed at highlighting the contribution of nanotechnology and two-dimensional materials in the novel field of nanomedicine.
We have tried to put in evidence the interdisciplinary nature of nanomedicine and the key role of physics and materials science.
In a first seminar, Dr. Marco Alfano has discussed bioengineering and tissue engineering, by reporting the most striking innovations in the field, with a particular attention to the printing of artificial organs and their surgical implantation. The most astonishing issue addressed in the seminar was the motivation behind the puzzling evidence that an artificial nose or ear grows in time in young patients. Moreover, a video showing the printing of an artificial bone has been projected.
The role of materials science and engineering has been clarified.
We have invited prof. Luigi Pasqua of the Chemical Engineering Department for a second seminar on the role of chemistry in nanomedicine and, moreover, the impact of nanotechnology in pharmaceutics.
In the second seminar, prof. Pasqua has illustrated his proper research activity in collaboration with the Department of Chemistry and the Department of Pharmacy of our University. Prof. Pasqua’s team has developed multifunctional hybrid mesoporous silica-based materials, potentially useful for drug targeting or as sensors. The creation and structuring of the matter as molecular systems, at the nanometer scale, represents the possibility to interact with biological systems and to produce devices potentially useful in cancer therapy. Some success stories have been reported.
Such an interdisciplinary research has led to a highly innovative spin-off, funded by Calabria Region. A careful evaluation of prospects, opportunities and challenges has been provided. In particular, the global market of nanopharmaceutics has been carefully evaluated in all its aspects, in order to give the participants an overview of the relationship between the business world and nanotechnology.
In a third seminar, dr. Antonio Politano from Department of Physics of University of Calabria has reported the challenges of nanomedicine with two-dimensional materials. In particular, the key issues in artificial retina have been discussed, with a particular attention for the role of flexible nanoelectronics. Biocompatibility of two-dimensional materials has been also treated, with some case-study examples.
Refreshments with some beverages and snacks have been offered to the participants.

DOFFI Conference 2016

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PrintWe have taken part in organising an annual Conference to hungarian PHD students.
The DOFFI Conference gave Physics PhD students from Hungary a chance to present their research and in return, gain an insight about the work being carried out by fellow students. Through a relaxed and friendly environment, it also gave attendees a chance to network with academics and students to create and strengthen professional relationships.
The four-day event was split into sessions which were chaired by top hungarian academics in the field. Student presenters of the sessions had the opportunity to receive feedback from an assigned discussant and the audience. The sessions were organised as the following:
A presenter gave a presentation of their own paper (10 minutes).
A discussant gave a short critical analysis of the presenter’s work (5 minutes).
All of the audience was given the opportunity to present their work in a poster. This took place during the whole of the conference.
The PHD students also participated in daily plenary lectures with current research topics (for example gravity waves or the dark photons).
Several physicist employing companies presented themselves to offer different jobs (e.g.Morgan Stanley).
We organised a forum discussions on issues affecting the physicist community.
We hope that the participant learned a lot, and got to know each other.

Webpage with abstracts, pictures and program:
http://doffi.elte.hu/

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Physics is Back

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fotoIn order to enrich the orientation programme offered by our department for master students, PONYS members proposed and organized a series of talks meant to underline of a physicist can work and excel outside the research world.
During 2015-2016 academic year, PONYS members organized a series of seminars about the possibilities, for a physicist, to begin an alternative career along the research one.
This meetings were held at the physics department of University of Naples Federico II.
Lecturers were chosen among those who decided to start a career far from the “research world”. Indeed, we invited former physics students of our department that now have job positions outside universities and research centers. We wanted to know and to focus the conversation on how a “physical backgroung” could be used outside the academia. All the students of our department were warmly invited to join the seminars and to take part with their curiosity and questions.
Our speakers were:

  • Emilio Sassone Corsi, Senior Partner & CEO Management Innovation, 12th February 2016. His speech was entitled “From Physics to innovation management and back.”
  • Marco Valli, data scientist at Pangea Formazione, 30th March 2016 whose talk was entitled “from Physics to the industrial world and back.”

This two meetings were attended by an average of twenty people between PhD and master students in physics.
Each meating was closed with a light buffet, ment to thank our guest and to enjoy some time with the parecipants. This coffe breaks were a good occasion for us to present and talk about our past activities and future projects!

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Conference “Developments in Optics and Communications 2016”

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1imgA little earlier than usual – just before Easter -, from the 21st to 23rd of March, the 12th International student and young scientist conference “Developments in Optics and Communications 2016” (DOC 2016) was held in Riga. It gathered many brilliant young scientists from different countries to share their scientific work, insights and experiences in various fields related to optics: vision science, optical materials, biophotonics, laser physics and spectroscopy.

Each topic also featured an invited speaker that shared their experience with the young scientists. This year from Latvia – Dr. Mara Reinfelde talked about “Practical application of holography” for the Laser Physics and Spectroscopy section, University of Latvia OSA student chapter advisor Dr. Florian Gahbauer gave an amazing speech on the topic of “Magnetic sensing with nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centres in synthetic diamond”. The conference organizers had also invited speakers from Israel and Finland to talk about their research.

Dr. Igor Meglinski was invited to tell students about “Cloud Monte Carlo for the needs of biomedical optics” for the biophotonics section and Prof. Zeev Zalevsky from Israel gave a speech about “Super resolved and extended depth of focus concepts for remote and ophthalmic imaging systems” for vision science students. Students were so engaged in Prof. Zalevsky’s speech that it took almost an extra 20 minutes just to answer all the questions and give in-depth explanations of his work.

Traditionally the best poster and the best oral presentation are given an award for their work funded by University of Latvia OSA student chapter, and this year was no exception. The best speech award was given to Janis Smits for his talk “Deconvolution – a tool for enhanced resolution magnetic images” and the best poster was presented by Andris Antuzevics (“Structure of Gd3+ ions in oxyfluoride glass ceramics containing fluorite crystallites”).

This year was special also because of the conference venue. The conference was held in the newly built Academic Center for Natural Sciences of the University of Latvia (ULACNS) in Tornakalns. ULACNS opened its doors on September 7th, 2015. It was hoped that relocating to the new UL ACNS would create unprecedented opportunities for cooperation between scientific fields and study programs. And indeed it was an amazing experience to listen to talks and admire posters in the new building. The premises on the 7th floor provided an amazing view over Riga for every attendee to enjoy. The staff were also kind enough to allow conference guests to enjoy the view from the rooftop.

The conference was not only an event to present one’s work and listen to others, but also a way to meet fellow physicists in an informal environment. Since the best collaboration ideas are usually born while discussing various topics outside the conference rooms, this year a friendly paint-ball tournament for the conference participants was held.

The conference was organised alongside University of Latvia SPIE and OSA chapters.

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Seminars and Workshops on General Theory of Relativity

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Seminar2The activity of weekly seminars and workshops was launched and continues successfully. Starting from January, 16 theory seminars and 7 workshops of exercises solving were held, covering first 3 chapters of book “Spacetime and Geometry. An Introduction to General Relativity” by Sean Carroll. For administration, advertisement and proper book-keeping of the activity, the website of the seminars has been created (http://www.tfk.ff.vu.lt/seminarai/english-gr-seminars/). At the end of the seminar, the seminars attracted 8 regular attendees and more occasional ones. Most of them were master/PhD students of Faculty of Physics. YM section has analyzed the feedback opinions of the participants and came to conclusion, that this subject is very exciting but also extremely tough for bachelor students and this has limited the number of attendees. The activity budged was spent as planned: we have purchased 2 books “Spacetime and Geometry. An Introduction to General Relativity” and snacks for attendees. The lecture notes were prepared and printed for each chapter at its end. Faculty of Physics of Vilnius University has provided auditorium and multimedia for the seminars. The activity will be continued during the next semester regardless of funding sources. The YM section of Vilnius University contributed to the activity by advertising the seminars in the faculty (by posters and emails in students’ mailing lists). 2 chapter members were regular attendees of the seminars and 4 chapter members were occasional attendees. As the seminars were quite popular, the talks between the chapter and faculty administration about possibilities of changing the status of the seminars to a credited regular student course has been started. If successful, the main goal of this activity will be reached.

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Light: past, present, and future applications

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Messina_IYLLight is life. Light is fundamental for many biological processes. It is involved in a huge quantity of technological applications, which make our daily life simpler. Nevertheless the awareness of the important role played by light lies in shadows for most of the average people. In Physics, the double (wave-particle) nature of light is one of the most fascinating aspects, which engaged the attention of the scientific community for more than a century. In order to celebrate the International Year of Light (IYL2015) the Messina YM Section organized different activities. They can be grouped into two main categories: seminars and outreach. The former was mostly addressed to students from bachelor to Ph.D. level, while the main target of the latter was stimulating interest in Light, and more in general in Physics, among undergraduate students and children.
Light seminars were organized with the help of the “Appunti di Fisica” group in Messina. They ranged from astronomy and basic concepts to the most useful applications involving light. The following is the list of the events proposed to the scientific community:

  • The birth of Light: a brief story on the visible Universe (C. Cecchi-Pestellini – INAF Palermo)
  • The laser calibration system of the muon g-2 experiment at Fermilab (A. Anastasi – YM Messina member)
  • Light in Chemistry (S. Campagna – University of Messina)
  • Sun as renewable energy source (G. Gambadoro – University of Messina)
  • Quantum Light-Matter interactions (S. Savasta, L. Garziano – University of Messina)
  • Light trapping in a 2D-fractal system (B. Fazio – CNR IPCF Messina)
  • The invisible light: An industrial application of infrared microscopy (S. Patanè – University of Messina)
  • One-day workshop on Light (6 speakers – appuntidifisicamessina)

After each seminar a coffee break was offered by our section to the participants, also to stimulate further discussions and promoting YM section activities.
Regarding the Outreach activities our main target was to arise high school students’ interest on the physical nature of light, by diffusing knowledge from the basic principles of electromagnetism to some of the many possible applications. We managed to do it by means of demonstrative experiments in which light was the main character. We met students in high schools or in the university locals. During these events we performed different experiments, such as interference with laser, diffusion of light through prisms and so on. In these activities students had the opportunity to play with hands in the experiments, handling polarizers, lenses and prisms. We think that this approach is the most effective to get involved students with physics.
By collaborating with a local environmental group (“Fare Verde”), we also took part to European Solar Days, a project finalized to raise the awareness of the importance of the solar energy among people and especially children. For this reason we organized a demonstration of devices and toys working with solar energy in the main square of Messina.

Cycle of seminars on plasmon research and plasmonic devices

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2015_Cala_Semin_01The Calabria YM Section realized a cycle of seminars addressed to undergraduate students:

  • Two-dimensional materials from graphene to “beyond graphene” and their plasmonic modes (Prof. Anna Cupolillo with an introduction by prof. Gennaro Chiarello);
  • When plasmonics meet Terahertz technology (Dr. Antonio Politano).

The emergence of two-dimensional materials has been discussed. In particular, prof. Cupolillo introduced the groundbreaking impact of graphene on condensed-matter physics and the pitfalls of graphene-based devices. The necessity of going beyond graphene has been clarified. The attention was focused on phosphorene, also in consideration of the recent success of experiments carried out on our department on this material. After a detailed introduction on the two-dimensional atlas of advanced materials, plasmons have been introduced with their peculiarities in these materials.

In the seminar on Terahertz technology, the state of the art has been presented, with attention on the various aspects: the characteristics of the Terahertz radiation, the use of plasma waves to detect Terahertz radiation and the application in technology. It has been clarified that THz radiation has no endangering effects on human beings and enables higher contrast for “soft matter” than x-rays. The excitations of plasmons inside the active channel of nano-transistors devised for Terahertz detection has been introduced. The plasma-wave detection mechanism is just the most promising mechanism for introducing Terahertz technology in daily life.
Plasma-wave-based THz detectors open new possibilities of construction of real-time THz imaging systems. Most plastics, textiles and paper are nearly transparent for THz radiation. Therefore, further application fields are industrial quality inspection control, customs inspection and security screening of persons. Imaging experiments taken on 10 ms have been presented, to demonstrate the feasibility to use Terahertz photodetectors as body scanner, instead of the X-rays, which are ionizing radiation, which can be harmful for human health.
In general, particular attention has been dedicated to the attempt to improve the interaction with other departments. This is beneficial for our EPS-YM section, since we find a lot of interest toward two-dimensional materials from mechanical engineers in our university. We find different contact points with young researchers in nanomechanics.
Seminars have been attended by about 35 students, coming from Physics, Materials Science and Mechanical Engineering.
After the seminars, a discussion with students about the prospect of applied research on advanced materials has been done, under the coordination of prof. Chiarello, associate professor of Applied Physics.

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Scientific Cinema

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Scientific_Cinema_01The Erlangen MPL YM Section  organized a social evening for a screening of the documentary feature “That’s the story”, which shows an interview with the Nobel laureate Prof. Roy J. Glauber about his time at the Manhattan Project.

Professor Glauber is the last living scientist from the theory division of the Manhatten Project at Los Alamos. In his interview he gives first-hand information on the daily life at Los Alomos, the scientific team there and its work, the test of the first nuclear weapon (Trinity test), the bombing of Japan and the political aftermath of the project. We invited Prof. Latorre, the producer of the documentary to the Max-Planck-Institute at November 13 to share the documentary with us. The screening was followed by an open discussion, for which we invited two experts from politic science and history. The first one was Wolfram Ridder from the institute of politic science at the FAU and the second one was PD Dr. Stephan Geier, who did his doctoral thesis about the nuclear weapons nonproliferation treaty. Stephan Geier is currently at the University of Warwick and therefore participated via skype. A lively and controversy discussion among the three invited guests as well as with the audience took place about ethic issues of science and the responsibility of scientists. After the discussion, we provided a buffet, where people had the opportunity to continue their discussion on the topic. The event was a great success as approximately 80 people were attending it.

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Sleights of mind

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SofM_Valladolid__02Within the framework of the “International Year of the Light” the Valladolid YM Section Physics League organized a talk about visual perception and sleights of mind. We invited to neuroscientist Dra. Susana Martinez- Conde, cofounder of the exciting new discipline of NeuroMagic and also member of the Magic Castle, Magic Circle, International Brotherhood of Magicians, and the Society of American Magicians.

Magic tricks work because humans have a hardwired process of attention and awareness that is hackable. By understanding how magicians hack our brains, we can better understand how the same cognitive tricks are at work in advertising strategy, business negotiations, and all varieties of interpersonal relations. When we understand how magic works in the mind of the spectator we will have unveiled the neural bases of consciousness itself. The idea was approach the neuroscience to students and general public in a fun and accessible way.

This talk appeared on the local news programme. A reporter filmed a small part of the talk and a small interview to a Physics League member.

Before the talk, we carried out some experiments in the hall of the College of Science, some tricks that are easily explained with physical laws, like:

  • Burning hands, a mixture of water, soap and hairspray allows us to burn our hands without damage due to the Leidenfrost effect.
  • Bending spoons: The superpower of bending metal by just touching it is demystified. A gallium spoon looks like a normal kitchen spoon but it melts at 28 ºC being easily bent in our hands.
  • Bed of nails: People felt like ‘fakirs’ over this ‘comfortable’ bed of nails. The attendees were invited to prove this and other experiments.

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