Newsfrom our faculty members and students
Faculty Luís Oliveira e Silva distinguished as Visiting Professor in Physics at Oxford University
January 25 2022Prof. Luís Oliveira e Silva has been appointed visiting Professor in Physics at the University of Oxford with the aim of strengthening his teaching and research collaboration.
This appointment, which will last for at least the next three years, will allow the Department of Physics and the Scientic Area of Plasma Physics, Lasers and Nuclear Fusion to strengthen their collaborations with the Department of Physics at Oxford University and, in particular, with the sub-departments of Atomic and Laser Physics and the Rudolf Peierls Centre for Theoretical Physics, in topics such as laboratory astrophysics (Prof. Gianluca Gregori), extreme plasmas (Prof. Peter Norreys) and plasma accelerators (Prof. Simon Hooker).
Congratulations Luís !
Faculties H Fernandes and M Fajardo nominated for IUPAP Commissions
December 27 2021Horácio Fernandes and Marta Fajardo were nominated for the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP) Commissions on Physics for Development (C13) and on Plasma Physics (C16), respectively.
The Commission on Physics for Development was established in 1981 to promote the exchange of information and views among members of the scientific community, to (i) help in appropriate ways the improvement of physics and physicists conditions in developing countries by (ii) proposing and, if appropriate, support initiatives to promote the contribution of physics to industrial development and (iii) collect and distribute relevant information on opportunities for Physics Development.
The Commission on Plasma Physics was established in 1969 to (i) promote the exchange of information and views among the members of the international scientific community in the general field of Plasma Physics, (ii) recommend, initiate and assist in the organization of international conferences, which qualify for support under Union regulations, and (iii) promote the free circulation of scientists; to assist conference organizers in ensuring such free circulation and in resolving potential infringements.
Horácio Fernandes' mandate is of particular importance given the fact that 2022 was elected as the "International Year of Basic Sciences for Sustainable Development" by UNESCO.
MIT project granted to faculties V Guerra and T Silva
December 15 2021Vasco Guerra and Tiago Silva were awarded a 50k€ grant for their exploratory proposal "plasma-assisted CO2 Recycling: from EArth TO maRs" (CREATOR), funded in the framework of the MIT-Portugal programme.
CREATOR consists of a systematic theoretical, modelling and simulation investigation, with the purpose of investigating CO2 plasma dissociation and plasma-surface interactions relevant for product separation. The final goal is to define the optimal conditions for a plasma reactor to operate for both Terrestrial and Martian CO2 recycling applications. It builds on the Seed Project "Inverse design and Modeling of Plasma-Assisted CO2-conversion Technologies" (IMPACT) financed in the 2021 MIT-Portugal call. The Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics from the MIT joins the project as a Participating Institution.
The project focuses on nanosecond pulsed discharges ignited in pure CO2, operating both at high (Earth) and low (Mars) pressure, to be investigated at the MIT in the framework of IMPACT. The different working pressures imply a modification of the dominant energy transfer pathways, from direct electron impact processes to a plasma chemistry mediated by vibrationally and electronically excited states.
CREATOR will contribute to enable new plasma-based technologies for CO2 conversion, which can contribute to mitigate fossil fuel consumption on Earth, and can play a key role in human exploration beyond Earth, by enabling the production of fuel and breathable oxygen on Mars.
Project of European Innovation Council granted to faculty Marta Fajardo
December 06 2021The NanoXCAN project, coordinated by Professor Marta Fajardo, was recommended for funding (€4 million) in the highly-competitive Pathfinder Open program (6% success rate) of the European Innovation Council (EIC). The NanoXCAN team, including researchers from IST/IPFN, the École Polytechnique and the Leibniz University Hannover, intends to develop a nanoscale virus imaging X-ray microscope.
The characterization of viral structures and the identification of key proteins involved in each step of the cycle of infection are crucial to developing treatments. Yet imaging single viruses can only be performed in a few specialized centres in Europe. NanoXCAN proposes to develop a tabletop virus imaging X-ray microscope, to be accesible in every hospital, with foreseeable impact as revolutionary as the invention of super-resolved fluorescence microscopy, paving the way towards the determination of the structure and dynamics of matter to a large community.
The project brings together two recent innovations: the possibility of generating very bright and small X-ray sources, in an optimized process using artificial intelligence; and an advance in the diffraction imaging technique that allows the use of conventional X-ray sources – as opposed to the coherent sources of such large infrastructures.
More information here
Mario Galletti wins Best PhD thesis award by SPOF
November 26 2021Former APPLAuSE student Mario Galletti has received the award for the Best PhD Thesis in Optics and Photonics in Portugal, 2020, sponsored by the Portuguese Society for Optics and Photonics – SPOF.
The thesis, entitled “High contrast front-end for a petawatt laser system designed for electron acceleration & High-intensity laser-matter applications towards advanced compact particle accelerators” was supervised by Prof. Gonçalo Figueira (IPFN/Physics Dept., Instituto Superior Tecnico, Universidade de Lisboa) and Dr. Marco Galimberti (Central Laser Facility, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, UK).
Mario, now a researcher at INFN in Italy, had already been among the four winners of this year's editions of the Best Thesis Award from the EPS Division of Plasma Physics.
Congratulations Mario!