News

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!

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.

Trends in Nanoscience 2017

Prof. Poggio attended the “Trends in Nanoscience 2017” symposium, which took place in Irsee, Germany from the 27th to the 30th. The conference, organized by colleagues from the University of Konstanz, included 31 invited talks and 2 poster sessions withcontributions on nanoelectronics, nanomechanics, nanooptics, and magnetic nanostructures. Prof. Poggio gave an invited talk, entitled “Force Sensing with Nanowires” on the 27th. A program can be found here.

Basel-Zürich 3-1

On Thursday the 2nd, group members went to Sankt Jacob-Park to watch FC Basel take on an inferior team from one of the neighboring cities. From the Muttenzerkurve, everyone had a good time watching the local team win the game 3-1 and advance to the semifinals of this year’s Swiss Cup.

Fundamental Electronics Begins

Prof. Poggio’s course entitled Fundamental Electronics is now underway. Lectures are Wednesdays, 14.00-16.00 in 3.12. The practical sessions take place in two sessions on Mondays 15.15-17.15 and Thursdays 09.00-11.00 both in 3.12.

Group Members at Spin Mechanics 4

From the 20th to the 25th, Post-docs Dr. Floris Braakman, Dr. Boris Gross, Dr. Denis Vasyukov and Ph.D. students Marcus Wyss and Lorenzo Ceccarelli attended Spin Mechanics 4 in Lake Louise, Canada. The meeting brought together researchers working on spin mechanics from all different perspectives with the goal of stimulating further progress in the understanding and control of coupled spin-mechanical-optical-electronic systems. On the 21st and 23rd, Boris, Marcus, and Lorenzo presented posters entitled, “Dynamic Cantilever Magnetometry On Individual Magnetic Nanoparticles”, “Imaging vortex magnetization configurations in ferromagnetic nanotubes by XMCD-PEEM”, and “Direct imaging of a vortex state in short CoFeB nanotubes by scanning SQUID”, respectively. On the 24th, Floris represented the group with an invited talk entitled, “Nanowire force microscopy and dynamic cantilever magnetometry”. A full program can be found here.

Ryuichi Ohta Visits the Lab

On the 14th, Dr. Ryuichi Ohta of NTT Basic Research Laboratories in Japan visited our lab. Dr. Ohta works in the Hybrid Nanostructure Physics Research Group led by Dr. Hiroshi Yamaguchi.

Group Members at FNS 2017

Ph.D. students Thibaud Ruelle, Nicola Rossi, and Prof. Poggio attended “Frontiers of Nanomechanical Systems (FNS) 2017” in La Thuile, Italy from the 5th to the 10th. The conference was the first meeting in a new series on nanomechanical resonators. The conference focused on all aspects  of nanomechanical resonators, including mechanical nonlinearities, out-of-equilibrium phenomena, dissipation, noise, sensing applications, and the coupling of mechanical vibrations to other degrees of freedom, such as electrons, nuclear spins, photons, and phonons. Thibaud and Nicola presented posters on their work on Wednesday the 8th entitled, “Experimental setup for combined cavity optomechanics and QED” and “Vectorial scanning force microscopy using a nanowire sensor”, respectively. Prof. Poggio gave an invited talk on the 10th entitled, “Mechanical Sensing of Nanomagnetic Systems”. A full program can be found here.

Two New Ph.D. Students Join Group

This month two new Ph.D. students joined our group. Both Simon Philipp and Giulio Romagnoli started work on the 1st. Simon has a Bachelors and Masters degree in phyiscs both from the University of Basel and will pursue his thesis project working on cantilever magnetometry experiments. Giulio earned his Bachelors and Masters degrees in physics from the University of Pisa. For his thesis, he will begin working on our nanoSQUID experiments.

Poggio/Zardo Group Lunch

On Friday the 13th, together with the Zardo group, our group had our annual holiday dinner — at lunch time.  This year, due to scheduling conflicts, we decided to have our festive meal at the Restaurant Schnabel in Basel during lunch time. Thanks to all for a good time!