2010 News

October 2011
Workshop on Quantum Spintronics

Prof. Poggio attended and gave an invited talk at the Workshop on Quantum Spintronics in Maratea, Italy. The program included a variety of talks and discussions on the latest experimental and theoretical results in spin systems including semiconductor quantum dots, nanowires, diamond, and other systems.

September 2010
Introduction to Nanomechanics Begins

Prof. Poggio’s course entitled Introduction to Nanomechanics is now underway. Lectures will be on Tuesdays, 10.00-12.00 in Seminarzimmer 4.1.

August 2010
“Markt des Wissens” in Aarau

As part of the University of Basel’s celebration for it’s 550th year, a fair was held on August 28th in Aarau. Our lab participated in the Physics Department contribution to the “Market of Knowledge”. Dennis Weber worked all day explaining demonstrations and answering questions from curious visitors. Thanks to Peter Reiman and all of the participating students and technicians for a wonderful job.

Topical Review Featured

The website nanotechweb.org published a news item on Prof. Poggio’s and Prof. Degen’s recent topical review entitled, Force-detected nuclear magnetic resonance: recent advances and future challenges. The feature appears in the “Lab Talk” section of the webpage under with the title, Taking MRI to the nanoscale by force.

Summer Party

The group organized a summer party and barbeque on the evening of Friday the 13th for friends and colleagues here in the Department of Physics. Thanks to all our friends in other research groups, to technical staff, and especially to the guys in the machine shop for making it a fun and entertaining evening.

July 2010
Topical Review Published

Prof. Poggio and Prof. Christian Degen of the MIT Chemistry Department have written a topical review entitled, Force-detected nuclear magnetic resonance: recent advances and future challenges. The article focuses on work Poggio and Degen did as post-doctoral researchers with Dr. John Mamin and Dr. Dan Rugar at the IBM Almaden Research Center in the MRFM group led by Rugar. The article appears in the journal Nanotechnology.

Nano-MRI Conference in Tremblay

From the 12th to the 16th of July the group attended the 3rd nano-MRI research conference at the Domaine du Tremblay near Paris, France. Many thanks to the organizers for putting on a wonderful conference. Our participation included a talk and four poster presentations.

May 2010
Prof. Konrad Lehnert Visits for Two Weeks

Prof. Konrad Lehnert from the University of Colorado and NIST is visiting our lab for the first two weeks of May through a new visitor program funded by the Basel QC2 Center. Prof. Lehnert runs a leading research lab for studying the quantum behavior of small electrical and electro-mechanical circuits.

Prof. Poggio Gives Zürich Physics Colloquium

Prof. Poggio gave the Zürich Physics Colloquium at the ETH on the 12th of May 2010. For more information see the flyer or listen to the podcast of his talk (.m4v download).

April 2010
NCCR Site Visit

Our group participated in a site visit for the Basel NCCR on Nanoscale Science which funds some of our projects. The students presented two posters and Prof. Poggio gave a short talk on our progress. The review panel of outside experts gave the NCCR the green light for the third and final phase of the project. After this time, the Swiss Nanoscience Institute (SNI), which is an outgrowth of this NCCR, will continue the tradition of cutting edge nanoscience research here in Basel.

March 2010
Optics of Solid-State Nanostructures Begins

Prof. Poggio’s course entitled Optics of Solid-State Nanostructures is now underway. Lectures will be on Wednesdays, 14.00-16.00 in Seminarzimmer 1.09.

February 2010
National Academy of Sciences Recognizes Nano-MRI Article

In 2005, PNAS established an annual award, now named the Cozzarelli Prize, which recognizes recently published PNAS papers of outstanding scientific excellence and originality. In February 2010, the editorial board recognized our article, Nanoscale magnetic resonance imaging, as one of 6 papers in 2009 with this distinction. See the announcement.