2017 (archive)

21.09.2017

IFIMUP is member of the BioBrillouin COST Action

IFIMUP is a member of the BioBrillouin COST Action. BioBrillouin is a pan-European network established to advance the field of Brillouin Light Scattering as applied for life science and biomedical research and applications. Networking activities are funded largely by an EU COST grant (CA16124). More information on BioBrillouin COST Action can be accessed in the following link.

By Célia Sousa

20.07.2017

Dr. João Horta Belo defended his PhD Thesis

Dr. João Horta Belo defended today his PhD Thesis on “Nanostructuring Gd5(Si,Ge)4 multifunctional materials”. Our warmest congratulations to him and to his supervisors, Prof. João Pedro Araújo and Dr. André Pereira. The work focusedon potential multifunctional thin film materials, aiming to take advantage of theirmagnetocaloric effect and nanosize for a new class of miniaturized refrigerators.The interplay between magnetic and atomic lattice degrees of freedom makes these materials, capable to undergo magnetostructural transitions by the variation of external magnetic fields, pressure and/or temperature. Here, a thorough and advanced characterization was performed on nanogranular Gd5(SixGe1–x)4 thin films, including the magnetocaloric effect, thermal expansion, electrical resistivity and how these properties varied along different thermal treatments and cycling laser deposition, as well as the optimizing of the 5:4 phase, Gd5(SixGe1–x)4, for continuous thin films.

Tailoring the Magnetism of Tb5Si2Ge2 Compounds by La Substitution , J. H. Belo, A. M. Pereira, J. P. Araujo, C. de la Cruz, A. M. dos Santos, J. N. Gonçalves, V. S. Amaral, P.A. Algarabel, C. Magen, L. Morellon, M.R. Ibarra and J.P. Araú́jo, Phys. Rev. B 86, 014403 (2012). https://journals.aps.org/prb/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevB.86.014403

Critical magnetic behavior of magnetocaloric materials with the Gd5Si4-type structure, J. H. Belo, A. M. Pereira, C. Magen, L. Morellon, P. A. Algarabel, M. R. Ibarra and J. P. Araújo, J. Appl. Phys. 113, 133909 (2013). http://aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/1.4798578

Insights on the origin of the Tb5Ge4 magnetocaloric effect, J. H. Belo, M. B. Barbosa, A. L. Pires, R. M. Costa, J. G. V. Teixeira, J. Silva, P. A. Algarabel, C. Magen, L. Morellon, J. S. Amaral, U. Zeitler, G. Veerendra, A. M. dos Santos, Y. Ren, M. R. Ibarra, J. P. Araújo and A. M. Pereira, Physica B 513, 72-76 (2017). http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921452617301114

By Catarina Dias

26.05.2017

European Materials Research Society (E-MRS) Award attributed to Ana Pires, a PhD student at IFIMUP-IN.

Ana Lúcia Pires, PhD student of the MAP-Fis Doctoral program at the Physics and Astronomy Department of The Faculty of Sciences of University of Porto was one of the awarded researchers of the 2017 Spring Meeting. The award was attributed by European Materials Research Society (E-MRS) in Strasbourg, France. The PhD student attended the symposium H, with an oral communication concerning her PhD Thesis theme, Inorganic Thermoelectric Materials.

This work, recognized by E-MRS, is being developed in the group of Thermoelectrics led by Prof. André Pereira at the Institute of Physics of Materials at the University of Porto Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (IFIMUP-IN/DFA).

The prize, which has a financial component, is aimed at students whose scientific contribution materials and devices’s research area, present a significant impact in nowadays’ society. E-MRS is one of the largest worldwide events in the materials research’s field and houses more than 2,500 participants and 26 seminars, which are spread across several areas of research.

The work carried out by the student concerns the development of new devices for capturing electric energy. This project is stablished in the XXI century, in which great efforts in the development of a new energy paradigm are being taken, namely for energy saving and alternative methods of production and recovery of energy: called energy collectors. Numerous strategies have been used to capture energy, such as: solar, vibration, magnetism, radiofrequency and thermoelectricity. It is in this last strategy that the student Ana Pires has focused her PhD, having developed flexible devices using low cost and ecological processes. The thermoelectric device is safe, clean, and the challenge is now to increase its efficiency.

Besides being a personal prize it is a group prize, reflecting the dynamics and persistence of the Porto group, which has secured jobs, collaborations and an international scientific exposure.

By Ana Pires & André Pereira

09.05.2017

European Project H2020-MSCA-RISE-734801-MAGNAMED: Novel magnetic nanostructures for medical applications

IFIMUP is member of the recent financed European Project H2020-MSCA-RISE-734801-MAGNAMED (Novel magnetic nanostructures formedical applications), a Marie Sklodowska-Curie project whose major goal is to build a dynamic Research and Innovation Staff Exchange between several international recognized institutions in Europe and America. In 4th and 5th May, Célia Sousa (Scientist in Charge), David Navas and João Pedro Araújo participated in the Grant Agreement Meeting in Madrid Spain. This project has 850 kEuros for the next 4 years and the participation of 15 Institutions:

  • Uiversidad Del Pais Vasco UPV, Spain
  • IMG Pharma Biothech SL, Spain
  • Nanovex Biothechnologies SL, Spain
  • Universidad Complutense de Madrid UCM, Spain
  • INESC-MN, Portugal
  • Universidade do Porto – IFIMUP, Portugal
  • Vienna Biocenter VBCF, Austria
  • ICETA-UP, Portugal
  • Universidade de Santiago de Chile USACH, Chile
  • Comision Nacional de Energia Atómica CNEA, Argentina
  • Comissão Nacional de Energia Nuclear CDTN, Brasil
  • Universidad Tecnica Federico Santa Maria USM, Chile
  • Universidade Estadual de Campinas UNICAMP, Brasil
  • The University of Texas System UTSA, USA
  • University of California UCSD, USA

The aim of the MAGNAMED project is the design, fabrication, and assessment of novel magnetic nanostrutures (MNS) with unique spin configurations for innovative diagnostics and therapy techniques. Several nanofabrication techniques will be used to fabricate MNS in vortex and antiferromagnetic spin configurations covering a broad size range (40 to 4000 nm). After functionalization, MNS will be exploited in:

  1. Diagnostics, using giant magnetoresistance (GMR) sensors for the detection of tumoral biomarkers, and
  2. Therapy, effectiveness of tumoral cell annihilation by the magnetomechanical action of MNS will be evaluated in vitro assays of melanoma and colorectal cancer cells.

MAGNAMED is a cross-sectoral and interdisciplinary project involving Physics, Chemistry and Medicine. Findings will have a medium-term impact on the European strategy for early stage detection of cancer and a long-term impact on the development of novel and groundbreaking therapeutics techniques.

The Scientific Coordination Board is composed of the Coordinator of the project, Rafael Morales (UPV) and the Work Package Leaders: Celia Sousa (UP), Gabriel Barreda (IMG), Susana Cardoso (INESC-MN), and Cláudia Nunes (ICETA). Where Portugal has 3 WPL, two of them from Porto University.

By Célia Sousa

24.03.2017

European Physical Society prize attributed to IFIMUP's PhD student.

Miguel Canhota, PhD student of MAP-fis doctoral program working at IFIMUP in Faculty of Sciences of University of Porto, was 1 of the 10 receivers of the students prize from European Physical Society (EPS), through the Quantum Electronic and Optics Division (QEOD) and the Young Minds Action Committee.This prize, the EPS-QEOD Travel Grant Student Award, is to students whose scientific research in optics and photonics is considered of the highest quality, including a certificate and financial support to the participation in the international Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics - European Quantum Electronics Conference (CLEO/Europe-EQEC 2017). The CLEO Europe conference takes place each 2 years, being the most important and biggest scientific event in optics, lasers and photonics in all of Europe.

The prize will be awarded in a Plenary Session of CLEO, in Munich (Germany), next 27th of June.The PhD of Miguel Canhota is being developed at the Ultra-fast Lasers and Magnetodynamic Spectroscopies Group of IFIMUP (Prof. Hélder Crespo) in collaboration with the Physics of Laser, Quantum Optics and Non-linear Optics Group of Universidade Complutense in Madrid (Prof. Rosa Weigand). In the CLEO conference, the PhD student Miguel Canhota will present 2 works (an oral presentation and a poster) entirely performed in the laboratory of ultra-shot laser pulses Femtolab of IFIMUP. Large efforts have been carried out to maintain this advanced laboratory working and to publish the obtained results in reference scientific journals, efforts that were now acknowledged by the European Physical Society. In the first work (oral presentation) a new time characterization method of ultra-short light pulses was developed in the regime of few femtoseconds (1 femtosecond = 0.000 000 000 000 001 seconds), able to measure pulses with only optic cycle of duration and in a spectral range from infra-red to ultra-violet, which has applications in several scientific and technological areas. The second work (poster) is related with the study and characterization of a new method of high-energy ultra-short light pulses based in the non-linear propagation in thin and transparent mediums, which might be in the basis for new coherent X-ray generation systems at the atosecond scale (1 atosecond = 0.001 femtoseconds) and for laser acceleration of particles. The group in Porto had also 3 other oral presentations accepted in the CLEO conference, resultant from work developed in collaboration with the Universities of Salamanca (Spain), Lund (Sweden) and the technological spin-off from University of Porto, Sphere Ultrafast Photonics. The complete laureates list can be found in this link.

By Hélder Crespo

20.03.2017

Dr. José Diogo Costa defended today his PhD Thesis

Dr. José Diogo Costa defended today his PhD Thesis on “Spin-transfer-torque nano-oscillators: fabrication, characterization and dynamics"Our warmest congratulations to José Diogo Costa and to his supervisors, Prof. João Oliveira Ventura and Dr. Ricardo Alexandre de Matos Antunes Ferreira In this thesis, magnetic dynamics were exploited for novel nanoelectronic devices. In particular, a cleanroom nanofabrication process was developed to successfully achieve nanosized radiofrequency emitters. These devices use the current-induced dynamics (through the spin transfer torque effect) in conjugation with the nanometric dimensions to operate. Their output power could be enhanced through the optimization of the insulating barrier thickness and several geometries (vortices, point-contacts and perpendicular polarizer) were built. Moreover, fundamental studies concerning the ultrafast magnetic and electric dynamics were also performed, pushing the field of spintronics to the THz range.

Terahertz dynamics of spins and charges in CoFe/Al2O3 multilayers, J. D. Costa, T. J. Huisman, R. V. Mikhaylovskiy, I. Razdolski, J. Ventura, J. M. Teixeira, D. S. Schmool, G. N. Kakazei, S. Cardoso, P. P. Freitas, Th. Rasing, and A. V. Kimel, Phys. Rev. B, 91, 104407 (2015). http://journals.aps.org/prb/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevB.91.104407

Impact of MgO thickness on the performance of spin transfer torque nano-oscillators, J. D. Costa, S. Serrano-Guisan, J. Borme, F. L. Deepak, M. Tarequzzaman, E. Paz, J.Ventura, R. Ferreira and P.P. Freitas, IEEE Trans. Magn., 51, 11 (2015). http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7117429/

Femtosecond control of electric currents in metallic ferromagnetic heterostructures, T. J. Huisman, R. V. Mikhaylovskiy, J. D. Costa, F. Freimuth, E. Paz, J. Ventura, P. P. Freitas, S. Blügel, Y. Mokrousov, Th. Rasing, and A. V. Kimel, Nat. Nanotech., 11, 455-459 (2016). http://www.nature.com/nnano/journal/v11/n5/full/nnano.2015.331.html

By João Ventura

10.03.2017

Dr. Mariana Proença was one of the Outstanding Reviewers of Nanotechnology in 2016

IOP Publishing has just announced that Mariana Proença, a postdoc researcher from IFIMUP, was one of the Outstanding Reviewer Award winners for 2016, in recognition of the high quality and timeliness of her reviews for Nanotechnology. You can check the list of winners in the following link:

http://iopscience.iop.org/journal/0957-4484/page/IOP-Publishing-Outstanding-Reviewer-2016

By Mariana Proença

17.02.2017

Dr. Gonçalo Oliveira defended today his PhD Thesis

Dr. Gonçalo Oliveira defended today his PhD Thesis on “Local probing spinel and perovskites complex magnetic systems”. Our warmest congratulations to Dr. Gonçalo Oliveira and to his supervisors, Prof. João Pedro Araújo and Dr. Armandina Lopes. The work focused on potential multifunctional bulk materials, aiming to enhance their multiferroic properties and to contribute to the fundamental understanding of its magnetoelectric coupling (its origin and how to enhance it). Here, the combination of local scale information (analysis of the magnetic hyperfine field, electric field gradient and local structural information) with macroscopic data allowed to obtain local signatures of the magnetoelectric effect and in this way better understand from a fundamental point of view, the origin of the macroscopic properties they exhibit.

G.N.P.Oliveira,A.M.Pereira,A.M.L.Lopes,J.S.Amaral,A.M.dosSantos,Y.Ren, T.M. Mendonça, C.T. Sousa, V.S. Amaral, J.G. Correia, and J.P. Araújo, Dynamic off-centering of Cr3+ ions and short-range magneto-electric clusters in CdCr2S4, Phys. Rev. B 86, 224418 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.86.224418

G.N.P. Oliveira, R. Teixeira, T.M. Mendonça, M.R. Silva, J.G. Correia, A.M.L. Lopes, and J.P. Araújo, Local symmetry lowering in CdMn2O4 spinel, J. Appl. Phys. 116, 223907 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4903949

By João Ventura

03.02.2017

IFIMUP members won Pitch Day at the Startups School of UPTEC

The WEStoreOnTEX business project won the Pitch Day contest of UPTEC Startups School. The team is constituted by Clara Pereira (Researcher REQUIMTE / LAQV at DQB), André Pereira (Professor at DFA and Researcher at IFIMUP-IN) and Rui Costa (a Master in Physical Engineering at FCUP). In this event, 17 business projects were presented by their managers. The Pitch Day event took place on the 2nd of February, and marked the closing of the 8th edition of School of Startups for Science and Technology of the University of Porto. This school consists in a 3-month period of mentoring and training, that allows participants to develop and promote their business ideas in the technological, scientific and creative areas.

WEStoreOnTEX is developing flexible textiles and accessories that store energy, enabling to power electronic devices and sensors, that may be integrated into the clothing itself. The target market is wellness and fitness market.

By André Pereira