Prof. Poggio in Grenoble
Prof. Poggio visited Néel Institute at the CNRS in Grenoble from the 29th to the 30th to give a seminar and participate in the jury of the Ph.D. defense of Laure Mercier de Lépinay, carried out in the group of Dr. Olivier Arcizet. Hosted by Dr. Arcizet and Dr. Benjamin Pigeau, Prof. Poggio’s talk on the afternoon of the 29th was entitled, “Nanomechanics and Nanomagnetism”. Ms. Mercier de Lépinay’s thesis was entitled, “Habillage mécanique d’un nanofil par un champ de force: de la mesure vectorielle ultrasensible aux systèmes quantiques hybrides”.
BBQ at the Birsköpfli
On the 25th, group members and friends met up for a barbeque at the Birsköpfli park along the Rhine river. There was food, beer, music, swimming, games, and good vibes. Thanks to everyone for a fun time in the sun!
Ph.D. Student Benedikt Herzog Graduates
On the 23rd, Ph.D. student Benedikt Herzog successfully defended his thesis, earning his physics doctorate magna cum laude. The examination was chaired by Prof. Patrick Maletinsky with Prof. Poggio and Prof. Ernst Meyer making up the committee. Ben has been part of the lab since starting as a Masters student in April of 2011. From the beginning, he dedicated himself to a particularly challenging experiment: magnetic resonance force microscopy (MRFM). During his time in the group Ben became an expert in all aspects of MRFM including preparing samples, producing ‘microwires’, aligning the microscope, programming complex pulse sequences, and designing measurement protocols. Ben was particularly successful at experiments investigating the transition between regimes dominated by thermal and statistical polarization in nanometer-scale ensembles of nuclear spins. Congratulations to Dr. Herzog, we will miss you, and good luck!
Ph.D. Student Andrea Mehlin Graduates
On the 21st, Ph.D. student Andrea Mehlin successfully defended her thesis and earned her physics doctorate summa cum laude. The examination was chaired by Prof. Ilaria Zardo with Prof. Poggio and Dr. Thomas Mühl (IFW Dresden) making up the committee. Andrea joined the lab in September of 2011 as a Masters student and stayed on for her Ph.D. After working on experiments investigating the coupling of mesoscopic transport to mechanical motion, Andrea took over measurements of nanometer-scale magnets using dynamic cantilever magnetometry (DCM). After successful experiments investigating the skyrmion phase in MnSi nanowires with Dr. Fei Xue, she went on to collaborate with Dr. Boris Groß on building a new measurement system and investigating further magnetic nanostructures. She will be deeply missed in the lab both as an excellent scientist and person. Congratulations to Dr. Mehlin and good luck for the future!
Boris Groß in San Sebastian
From the 19th to the 23rd, post-doc Dr. Boris Groß took part in the Sol-SkyMag (Solitons and Skyrmion Magnetism) 2017 conference on magnetism and spintronics. The conference was held in San Sebastian, Spain and serves to assess the status, recent progress, and development in the field of nanomagnetism and spintronics. The conference provides an international forum to discuss recent progress and trends in the field and to identify potential future collaborations. In particular, it aims to bring together the community of leading researchers working the area of nanomagnetism, spin dynamics, spin-transport, etc., and their applications. Boris gave a talk on Tuesday the 20th entitled, “Néel-type skyrmions in multiferroic lacunar spinels – Mapping out a stability phase diagram using dynamic cantilever magnetometry”.
Prof. Poggio in Ulm
On the 19th, Prof. Poggio visited the Physics Department of Ulm University. He gave the a talk entitled, “Nanomechanics and Nanomagnetism” at the Department’s colloquium.
Nicola Rossi in Japan
Ph.D student Nicola Rossi visited Japan to attend SpinTech IX in Fukuoka and to visit the group of Prof. Teruo Ono at Kyoto University. On Tuesday the 6th, Nicola gave a talk entitled, “Torque magnetometry of individual GaAs nanowires with ferromagnetic MnAs tips”, at SpinTech IX. On Monday the 12th, he gave a longer version of the same talk for the group seminar of Prof. Ono. SpinTech IX highlighted fundamental physical phenomena related to spin-dependent effects in condensed matter and advances in the development of new spintronic materials, structures, and devices, including quantum technologies.
Swiss NanoMRI Meeting
On Wednesday the 7th, group members attended the 2017 Swiss NanoMRI Meeting on the Hönggerberg campus of ETH Zürich. Members of the Degen (ETHZ), Bachtold (ICFO), and Novotny (ETHZ) groups also took part. Talks covered topics related to sensitive force-detected magnetic resonance, nanometer-scale magnetic resonance imaging, mechanical sensing, and magnetic imaging. Dr. Denis Vasyukov and Ph.D. student Davide Cadeddu both gave talks entitled, “Applications of nanoSQUIDs” and “Electric field sensing with a scanning fiber-coupled quantum dot”, respectively. Dr. Floris Braakman, Lorenzo Ceccarelli, Simon Philipp, Giulio Romagnoli, and Prof. Poggio were also in attendance from our group. Special thanks to Dr. Alex Eichler for organizing a great workshop!
Swiss Nanotechnology Award
On Friday the 2nd, Ph.D. student Nicola Rossi was awarded the Swiss Nanotechnology Award for his first author publication, Vectorial scanning force microscopy using a nanowire resonator. The prize was awarded on Friday afternoon at the 2017 Swiss Nanoscience Convention in Fribourg. Prof. Poggio accepted the award on behalf of Nicola and all of the paper’s authors: Dr. Floris Braakman, Davide Cadeddu, Dr. Denis Vasyukov, Gözde Tütüncüoglu, and Prof. Anna Fontcuberta i Morral. The award was offered by the The Swiss Micro- and Nanotechnology (MNT) Network and sponsored by ABB.
On the 30th, Physical Review Applied published our paper entitled, Electric field sensing with a scanning fiber-coupled quantum dot, as a letter. Over the years, a number of nanoscale electric-field sensors that can image single surface charges have been developed. Due to intrinsic limitations of their electrical or mechanical detection schemes, however, most operate at frequencies below 1 kHz. This study presents a scanning sensor based on an optically active semiconductor quantum dot, combining exquisite sensitivity and nanoscale resolution with high bandwidth. In addition to demonstrating the sensor’s feasibility, the authors lay out the improvements required to take its performance to the physical limit, to measure charging dynamics and individual tunneling events in few-electron and mesoscopic systems.
From the 25th to the 29th, Dr. Boris Groß and Prof. Poggio attended the Foundations and Applications of Nanomechanics conference at the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) in Trieste, Italy. The program highlighted recent experimental and theoretical breakthroughs in nanomechanics, optomechanics, electromechanics, sensing, photonic and phononic crystals, surface-acoustic waves, microwave-to-optics conversion, and quantum effects. Prof. Poggio gave an invited talk on the 26th entitled, “Mechanical sensing of nanomagnetic systems”.
On Saturday the 23rd, group members took another trip to Sankt Jacob-Park to watch FC Basel take on a team from a neighboring city. From the Muttenzerkurve, we enjoyed watching the local team win the game 1-0.
On the afternoon of the 2nd, Ph.D. student and rock-star Marcus Wyss played Basel’s Jungend Kultur Festival 2017 with his band n.eo. Plenty of fans showed up, including several current and former group members. The band did not disappoint with a tight set of original music. Check them out at their next gigs in and around Basel.
