From 12^th May to 11^th July 2014, Juan Carlos Gonzalez went to the group of Prof. Renner at Département de Physique de la Matière Condensée, Université de Genève, Genève (Switzerland) as visitor to work on “Scanning Tunneling Microscopy of Resistive Switching phenomena in La_1-xSr_xMnO_3-x compounds” under the supervision  of Dr. Ivan Maggio-Aprile.

http://dpmc.unige.ch/gr_renner/en/index.html

Between the 25^th and 27^th June, it was celebrated the last annual meeting of NANOSELECT (CONSOLIDER project) at Hotel Eden Roc at Sant Feliu de Guíxols (Girona) and SUMAN students participated very actively.

We got oral presentations from Dr. Cornelia Pop, Ferran Vallès, Laia Soler, Pablo Cayado, Rafael Ortega, Albert Queraltó and poster presentations from Bohores Villarejo, Júlia Jareño and Zack Khayat. In addition, Alba Garzón and Konstantina Konstantopoulou presented oral contributions of the collaboration work with our group.

From OXOLUTIA spin-off, Dr. Marta Vilardell presented an oral contribution and Dr. Roxana Vlad and Sara de Arriba presented poster contributions.

The tittles of each contribution can be checked in the program of the meeting.

http://ipanema.icmab.es/nanoselect/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=70&Itemid=41

The CSIC has awarded the Proyectos Intramurales Especiales project named “Tuning complex oxide perovskites based on emerging new concepts of volume resistive switching phenomena for non-volatile memories” to the group (SUMAN IP: Prof. Teresa Puig) with 70 k€ for 2 years (2014-2016).

Marta Vilardell defended her PhD Thesis, entitled “Inkjet printing: a flexible manufacturing of functional ceramic oxides by Chemical Solution Deposition”, on the 8th of May, the jury formed by Prof. M. Lourdes Calzada (ICMM-CSIC, Madrid), Prof. Jordi Carrabina (CAIAC-UAB, Barcelona) and Prof. Isabel Van Driessche (UGhent, Belgium) awarded her work with an Excel·lent Cum Laude which is the maximum qualification for a PhD thesis at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.

Congratulations Marta!

During the days between 21^st -25^th of April, Teresa Puig, Xavier Obradors, Jaume Gazquez and Albert Queraltó went to San Francisco (USA) to assist to the Spring Meeting of the Material Research Society.

Teresa Puig was co-organizer of Symposium T, chairman at sessions 1 and 15 of Symposium T and at Symposium J, presented an oral communication entitled “Resistive Switching Phenomena in Metallic Complex Functional Oxides” and “Chemical Solution Route to Self-Assembled Epitaxial Oxide Nanostructures” at Symposium RR.

Xavier Obradors was co-organizer of Symposium RR, chairman at session 6 of Symposium R and at Symposium T, presented an invented talk about “Advances in Coated Conductor Research in Europe”

Jaume Gazquez was chairman at session 2 of Symposium T and presented an invited talk entitled “In-Depth Characterization of the Challenging Microstructure of YBa2Cu3O7-d Nanocomposites: The Origin, Evolution and Interaction of Structural Defects”. At Symposium DDD, he presented an oral communication about “Atomic-Scale Imaging of a Complex Point Defect: Origins and Control of O-Decorated Cu Vacancies in YBa2Cu3O7-x“.

At Symposium K, Albert Queraltó presented a poster about “Nucleation and Growth Mechanisms of Epitaxial Ce1-xGdxO2-y Nanostructures” and an oral communication entitled “Laser-Induced Crystallization of Functional Oxides Thin Films Grown from Chemical Solutions” at Symposium RR.

http://www.mrs.org/spring2014/

Xavier Obradors, member of the Reial Acadèmia de Ciències i Arts de Barcelona, held a conference about “Nanomaterials from the 3^rd industrial revolution” to commemorate the Academy 250^th birthday.

http://www.racab.es/

SUMAN group participated, in a huge representation, at the 18th Month meeting of EUROTAPES project took place on March 5^th -7^th hosted by LEITAT Technological Center at Terrassa, Barcelona, SPAIN.

More than 60 people participants were involved in bringing up the last results obtained after the last tasks performed during the last period of time.During the Scientific Parallel Sessions, the work progress was presented and discussed by the project partners.

Concerning SUMAN personnel, different WP ICMAB presentations were given by Mar Tristany (WP1); Xavier Obradors (WP2); Cornelia Pop (WP3); Mariona Coll (WP4); Jaume Gazquez, Anna Palau and Ferran Vallès (WP5); Narcís Mestres, Xavier Granados and Mar Tristany (WP7).

The Project Technical Assistant attend to the meeting in order to take note about the progress of the project, after that meeting, the consortium will have to present the Official Periodic Report to the European Commission to move ahead with the project. Promising times are coming!