Last night, on May 24, Xavier Obradors received the Ambassador Award from the Regió 7 daily journal. Neus Munté, Minister of Presidency and government spokesperson, delivered the award. 

The awards ceremony took place in the Auditorium Plana de l’Om in Manresa, and Xavier was the first one to receive the award. During his speech, he said he was proud that this award linked his professional scientific life with his territory and his people. 

Xavier stated that scientists are facing global challenges, and that they keep progressing from the uncertainty and the unknown. In this way, he would like that the scientific advances achieved in the Research Centers could be transferred faster to the society, to the industry, to the people.

As ICMAB director, this is what he has been aiming for. “Research should become a benefit for our country; it is a future investment, not an expense. Our economy has no future without being strong in this area.”

Congratulations, Xavier, for this “Ambassador” award!

More information in Regió 7. 

The PhD Student Juan Carlos Gonzalez-Rosillo has defended his PhD thesis:

Title: Volume resistive switching in metallic perovskite oxides driven by the metal-insulator transition

Date:  Friday 19th May
Time: 11:30 am
Place: Auditorium of the Centre de Recerca Matematica (CRM) at the Facultat de Ciències-UAB

Abstract: Resistive-Random Access Memories (RRAM) are one of the most promising candidates to overcome the limitations of actual data storage technologies, due to their excellent performance. They are based on the Resistive Switching effect (RS), where the application of an electric field produces a reversible, non-volatile change in the resistance between two or more resistive states. In transition metal oxides, the motion of oxygen is widely accepted to play a key role in their outstanding properties. However, the exact mechanism governing this effect is material-dependent and for some of them it is still far to be understood. In this thesis, we present a novel Resistive Switching mechanism based on the Metal-Insulator Transition (MIT) in metallic perovskite oxides with strong electron-electron interaction. We analyse the RS behaviour of three different families of metallic perovskites: La_1-xSr_xMnO₃, YBa₂Cu₃O_7-x and RENiO3 and demonstrate that the MIT of these mixed electronic-ionic conductors can be tuned upon the application of an electric field, being able to transform the entire bulk volume.

Supervisors:
              Prof. Teresa Puig (SUMAN group, ICMAB)
              Dr. Anna Palau (SUMAN group, ICMAB)

PhD committee:
             President: Prof. Jordi Suñé (UAB)
             Secretary: Javier E. Villegas (CNRS-Thales)
             Vocal: Prof. Regina Dittmann (Forschungszentrum Jülich)

The Regió 7 Awards, this year in their eighteenth edition, recognize people and organizations who have excelled in different fields related to economics and society.

Xavier Obradors has been awarded the Ambassador Award, which honors a person who has excelled in his work outside Central Catalonia while broadcasting the territory.

Xavier was born in Manresa, and since 2008 he is the ICMAB director. He studied physics at the Universitat de Barcelona, and earned his PhD from the same university in 1982,  having performed PhD research stays in Toulouse and Grenoble. After a period of postdoctoral fellow and Associate Professor (Prof. Titular) at the University of Barcelona, he became Research Scientist at CSIC in 1989, and Research Professor in 1992. His research interests cover a broad spectrum, from innovative materials preparation with controlled nano and microstructure, to the search for the comprehension of the physical mechanisms underlaying the magnetic and superconducting properties of materials. Currently, his research focuses in the nanoscale control of superconducting materials, with a special interest in low cost processing approaches. He is member of the “Superconducting materials and large scale nanostructures” SUMAN group at ICMAB.

The 6M consortium meeting of FASTGRID has been taken place on the 15th-16th of May in Karlsruhe (Germany) hosted by the KIT (Karlruhe Insititute of Technology).

Participants have discussed scientific activities such as Advanced and emerging REBCO Tapes, Long legth REBCO tapes for demostration and Functionalized material for devices for FCL module.

From ICMAB: X. Obradors (WP1 coordinator), X. Granados,  C. Pop and M. Tristany  have been participated.

Hello, I’m Mateusz [Ma-te-oosh], a former PhD student at the MULFOX group at ICMAB. After graduation I have joined the SUMAN group and now I work on ferroelectric solar cells under the scientific supervision of dr. Mariona Coll

The TV program Verd Primera, from betevé, has emitted on May 8th, a short video report on superconducting materials.

To know how the superconducting materials are produced, their main characteristics, and their fields of application, don’t miss the video below!

Thanks to Teresa Puig, Susagna Ricart, Flavio Pino and Bohores Villarejo to make this video possible!

Link video fullpage:  https://btv.playty.com/player#/video?autoplay=1&id=VRD080517REPORTATGE

Mariona Coll visited last week the Secondary school IES La Plana, in Vic, within the program “A researcher in your classroom“.

One of the program goals is that the students discover Materials Science, but also to bring closer scientists to students and encourage scientific vocations.

Since 2009, ICMAB researchers have visited many different Secondary schools and have always received very positive feedbacks. 

VIDEO

El Consejo Europeo de Investigación (ERC, por sus siglas en inglés) cumplió 10 años el 24 de marzo de 2017. A lo largo de esta década de vida, se ha financiado a unos 7.000 investigadores, permitiendo la publicación de cerca de 100.000 artículos en revistas científicas internacionales. En España, cerca de 400 investigadores han recibido un total de 650 millones de euros y el Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC) destaca por ser la institución española con mayor número de ayudas, por delante de la Universidad Pompeu Fabra, el Instituto de Ciencias Fotónicas, la Universidad de Barcelona y el Centro de Regulación Genómica. Entre los más de 400 proyectos que han obtenido una ayuda del Consejo Europeo de Investigación en España, más de un centenar han recaído en el CSIC. De éstas, nueve corresponden al ICMAB: 4 Consolidator Grants, 3 Starting Grants, 1 Advanced Grant (Prof. T. Puig) y 1 Proof of Concept. 

Xavier Granados García es Científico Titular del CSIC y miembro del Departamento de Materiales Superconductores y Nanoestructuración a Gran Escala. Desde 1987, ha colaborado con el grupo de Superconductividad en la Universidad de Barcelona y posteriormente en el Instituto de Ciencia de Materiales de Barcelona desde su fundación, contribuyendo en el desarrollo de actividades de I+D+i en el campo de la Superconductividad y sus Aplicaciones  en el Área  “Large Scale” de sistemas electrotécnicos, liderando las actividades en este área dentro del grupo de Investigación.

Es miembro de la Sociedad Catalana de Física, de la European Society of Applied Superconductivity, del Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, de la Cryogenic Society of America, del High Temperature Superconductors Modelling Workgroup, es representante del CSIC en el JP Energy Sorage de la European Energy Research Aliance y coordinandor del subprograma Superconducting Magnetic Energy Storage. Ha participado en más de 30 Proyectos competitivos y contratos con empresas y ha contribuido en más de 150 publicaciones.

ENTREVISTA