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Dear colleagues, dear members of the MaNEP association,
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It has been a long time that we have not been able to meet
in person to discuss our new results and ideas and also to chat over
private matters. For two consecutive years, the Covid crisis has forced
us to cancel our major activities, like the MaNEP workshop and winter
school. The central task of MaNEP, to foster the interaction between the
Swiss researchers working on quantum materials and to integrate and
educate our young colleagues, thus has been jeopardized.
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In the meantime, we have continued our work with limited
contact to our colleagues hoping for the “light at the end of the
tunnel”. This unexpected experience has taught us just how important a
well-connected research community is to the success of our work. So far,
it seems that we have managed to remain productive, as is also evident
from the exciting research highlights and the prize awards that are
reported in this newsletter.
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In the near future, I am convinced that the MaNEP network
and its various activities will be needed more than ever in order to
restore the direct contact between colleagues and thus enhance
discussions and the exchange of ideas. This will be especially important
for our young colleagues for some of which a regular workshop will be
an entirely new experience. In addition to online workshops, see e.g.
the one on van der Waals material on June 24th, we are therefore
planning for a regular Winter School in Saas-Fee in January 2022 and a
MaNEP workshop in Les Diablerets in August 2022.
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I am certainly looking forward to seeing all of you in
person and to chat with you over a coffee or other preferred beverages !
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What's new ?
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To stimulate research col-laborations in Switzerland,
MaNEP organizes one-day or half-day workshops. The second MaNEP Van der
Waals Materials Workshop will be held online on June 24th, 2021,
from 12h45 to 17h. The Van der Waals Materials Workshop series’ main
purpose is to keep each other informed of the latest Swiss developments
in this field. To register, please fill the online form before June 22nd, 2021.
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We are glad to inform our members that the MaNEP Winter School is scheduled for January 16th to 21st, 2022 in Saas-Fee. This
9th edition of the school series, initially planned for January 2021
and delayed due to the pandemic, offers an unchanged program entitled
“Hot topics in driven, two-dimensional, and topological matter”.
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The registrations are open.
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The next MaNEP Swiss Workshop on Materials with novel electronic properties is planned on August 29th-31st, 2022 in Les Diablerets. Save the date ! Due to the persistence of the Covid-19 situation, the 2021 session is cancelled.
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Updated information will be posted.
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Claribel Dominguez in the group of Prof. Jean-Marc Triscone,
University of Geneva, obtained a UNIGE Subside Tremplin. Claribel is
finishing her PhD working on nickelate superlattices where an
interesting coupling mechanism was found in structures made of two
nickelates with different metal-insulator transition temperatures. A
paper recently published in Nature Materials.
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Aline Ramires, junior group leader and Ambizione Fellow at
the Paul Scherrer Institute, received the Science Early Career Invited
Lecture Award from the University of British Columbia. Aline was
nominated to the award for her recent key contributions to the
understanding of unconventional superconductivity in complex quantum materials from a microscopic perspective.
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The thesis of Philippe Tückmantel entitled "Scanning Probe
Studies of Structural and Functional Properties of Ferroelectric Domains
and Domain Walls", supervised by Prof. Patrycja Paruch, UNIGE, was
recognised by a Springer Theses prize and published in the Springer
Theses series. It brings together a selection of the very best PhD
theses from around the world and across the physical sciences.
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Work in the Network
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Scientific perspective
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By Simon Gerber, Henrik Lemke, Luc Patthey, Urs Staub and Cristian Svetina, PSI
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The X-ray free-electron laser SwissFEL [1] is PSI’s latest
large-scale facility, serves several research areas and is complementary
to the other accelerator-based photon source, the Swiss Light Source
(SLS) synchrotron [2]. For condensed matter research, SwissFEL operates
the Bernina endstation [3] at the hard X-ray Aramis beamline. In
addition, the Cristallina endstation [4] is under construction, serving
in parts also condensed matter research, as well as, the Furka
endstation [5] at the soft X-ray Athos beamline. Here we provide a short
overview of the status of the current instrumentation, describe two
experiments from the operational Bernina endstation, and close with an
outlook. An overview of future directions in X-ray science is found in
the recently published Photon Science Roadmap [6] composed by the Swiss
Society for Photon Science.
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Scientific highlights
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Ultrafast manipulation of magnetic states holds great
promise for progress in our understanding of new quantum states and
technical applications. Increasing experimental evidence has shown in
recent years that magnetism is suppressed by photodoping, but the exact
nature of the spin configuration in such transient states and its
evolution in time is largely unclear.
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In 1822, almost two centuries ago, a French engineer Charles
Cagniard de la Tour discovered that above a pressure of 221 bar water
does not boil anymore, but forms a single phase that evolves smoothly
from densities typical of water at low temperature to densities typical
of the gas phase at high temperature.
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Discover more MaNEP Network's research and innovations trough other publication highlights.
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Portrait
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What made you decide to become a materials researcher ?
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Materials are an integral part of modern society. New
materials can have a profound impact on our lives, and they are an
indispensable component for technological progress. Inventing them has
always sparked a particular fascination for me. This fascination still
drives me today when we look for the most complex materials of all,
quantum materials. Emergent, collective quantum states remain incredibly
difficult to predict, which makes their discovery all the more
interesting.
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Upcoming events
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Van der Waals Materials Workshop
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Cold Atom Predoc School in Les Houches
September 13 - 24, 2021, Les Houches, France
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January 16 - 22, 2022, Saas-Fee, Switzerland
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Swiss Workshop on Materials with novel electronic properties (SWM)
August 29 - 31, 2022, Les Diablerets, Switzerland
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(Photo credit: Scientify-UNIGE, UNIFR, group Morpurgo-UNIGE, PSI, UNIGE, EPFL, Jos Schmid)
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MaNEP Switzerland Network
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24, quai Ernest-Ansermet - 1211 Geneva 4
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