2021 (archive)

Next Thursday, October 26 at 12h online via Zoom Colibri, Filipa Furriel will give the 9th session of the 2021 IFIMUP Talks series. Filipa Furriel is a Master student currently developing her thesis at IFIMUP. Her talk will be on "Magnetocaloric ferrofluids".

By Catarina Dias

As a takeoff for this initiative, the first LaPMET workshop will take place on September 23 and 24 (online) and will address “Quantum Materials and Quantum Technologies”, “Advanced Materials and Processes for Energy”, “Materials and Technologies for Health and Environment” and “New Principles and Technologies for Sensing” research topics. C2TN (Center for Nuclear Sciences and Technologies) will also be participating in this first edition. In this 2-day event, participants will have the opportunity to share and discuss their research through oral and poster presentations.

By Catarina Dias

Dr. João Ventura talked at "90 segundos de ciência" (Antena 1, RTP) about his work on triboelectric nanogenerators. (Audio in Portuguese)

By Catarina Dias

Dr. Suellen Moraes is the most recent PhD from the IFIMUP group with the thesis entitled “Multimodal Magnetic Lipid Nanocarriers for Cancer Therapies”. Our warmest congratulations to her and her supervisors Dr. Célia Tavares, Dr. Cláudia Nunes (FFUP) and Prof. João Pedro Araújo. The work focused on the development of functionalized magnetic nanostructures for applications in hyperthermia as an alternative therapy for cancer tumor treatments.

Project SMARTX was featured on the national news. João Horta Belo explained how this project aims to develop a "green" micro-refrigerator, based on the principle of magnetic refrigeration, which can help to obtain "faster and more efficient" results in disease detection tests. He further explains that the prototype will consist of an acrylic plate with a small channel through which a fluid composed of nanoparticles immersed in liquid will pass. At one end it is what needs to be cooled, like a 'microchip' of a computer, for example, and at the other end, there is a cold end to which the heat that will be cooled is transported. With the nanoparticles immersed in the liquid, the exchanges of heat will be much faster. The prototype could help in disease detection tests, which use biological samples, giving results faster and more efficiently. Usually these tests have to go through cycles of different temperatures, heating or cooling, and this could be one of the applications of magnetic refrigeration on a microscale. te complete articles (in Portuguese) can be read at Observador, Público and Notícias ao Minuto.

This project is financed under the Bilateral Relations Fund of the EEA Grants (financial mechanism of the European Economic Area) and developed in colaboration with researchers from the Institute for Energy Technology (in Norway).

By Catarina Dias

Next Wednesday, June 30 at 12h online via Zoom Colibri, Pedro Resende will give the 6th session of the 2021 IFIMUP Talks series. Pedro Resende is a former IFIMUP MSc student that recently got his PhD from Instituto de Micro y Nanotecnología (IMN), Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (Spain) and is currently a Post-Doctoral Researcher at Laboratoire de Chimie des Polymères Organique (LCPO), Université de Bordeaux/CNRS/Bordeaux INP (France). His talk will be on "Polymer Networks from 3D-Template-Assisted Nanostructuration".

By Catarina Dias

Project SMARTX won a Bilateral Research Fund 2021 grant awarded by PARSUK – Portuguese Association of Researchers and Students in the UK in the amount of 3000 Eur. The Portugal-UK Bilateral Research Fund (BRF) was created in 2020 to support the establishment and development of research links between universities and research institutes in the UK and Portugal.

The SMARTX Project has the participation of researchers Joao H. Belo (PI), Neenu Lekshmi and Pedro Rodrigues of IFIMUP and Professor John SO Evans of Durham University in the United Kingdom.

In this project the focus is on the study of smart materials (such as R-Si-Ge and Ruddlesden-Popper) and their phase transitions using X-ray diffraction as a function of temperature. In particular, it is intended to study the thermal expansion, the kinetics of transitions using this technique and applying advanced crystallographic analysis methods, namely through the TOPAS software.

This project is expected to be the first of many in the long-term collaboration between IFIMUP and Durham University.

By João Horta

Next Tuesday, May 18 at 12h online via Zoom Colibri, Daniel Silva will give the 4th session of the 2021 IFIMUP Talks series. Daniel Silva is a Junior Researcher with a funded project in the 2020 FCT national call. His talk will be on this project regarding "Demagnetizing-based magnetocaloric refrigeration".

By Catarina Dias

Sara Freitas, an IFIMUP master student under the supervision of Dra. Célia Sousa and Dr. João Horta, won the Best Poster Award contest in the 2021 Intermag Virtual Conference on the “Bio-applications of Magnetism” section. The poster was about “Multifunctional Fe-Au nanostructures for biomedical applications” and the presented work had the collaboration of several people namely João H. Belo, Célia T. Sousa, Ricardo Magalhães, H. Crespo, M. Canhota, Miguel Peixoto de Almeida, Eulália Pereira, B. Almeida, B. M. Silva and João P. Araújo. The main goal of the work is to produce multifunctional Iron-Gold nanostructures with high heating performance when stimulated with radiation and with alternating magnetic fields, for applications in controlled and localized hyperthermia. The nanostructures were produced by two methods, through the ablation of Iron and Gold targets with a femtosecond pulsed laser in liquids (such as ethanol) and by electrodeposition in self-organized alumina matrices.

By João Horta

Next Wednesday, March 24 at 12h online via Zoom Colibri, Rui Vilarinho will give the 3rd session of the 2021 IFIMUP Talks series. Rui Vilarinho is a Junior Researcher with a funded project in the 2020 FCT national call. His talk will be on this project: E-FiELD, "Electric Field Engineered Lattice Distortions for Optoelectronic Devices".

By Catarina Dias

Next Monday, March 1 at 12h online via Zoom Colibri, João Magalhães will give the 2nd session of the 2021 IFIMUP Talks series. João Magalhães is a Master student currently doing his thesis at IFIMUP. His talk will be on "Development of Plasmonic Photo-thermal Nanogenerators for Energy Harvesting".

By Catarina Dias

Next Friday, January 15 at 12h online via Zoom Colibri, Javier Rial Costa will give the 1st session of the 2021 IFIMUP Talks series. Javiel Rial is a PostDoc that recently started working with us. His talk will be on "A novel design of racetrack memory based on functional segments".

By Catarina Dias