Author Archive

Multimodal Remote Actuation and Sensing in Polymers

Read the new collection in Materials Advances

We are delighted to introduce our new themed collection focusing on remote actuation in polymers.

Guest Edited by Lorenzo Bardella (University of Brescia, Italy),Mohammad Luqman (Taibah University, Saudi Arabia) and Vinay Deep Punetha (P P Savani University, India).

 

A message from the Guest Editors:

“Hopefully, readers will find these fascinating papers from diverse research domains enlightening, broadening the understanding of the extensive research on stimuli-responsive materials and inspiring new investigations on innovative applications for these versatile materials.”

 

A small selection of the papers are featured below:

A multi-cation model for the actuation of ionic membranes with ionic liquids

Alain Boldini

Mater. Adv., 2024,5, 5213-5230. DOI: 10.1039/D4MA00097H

High-performance transparent hybrid (ionic and dielectric) gel actuator system based on poly(vinyl chloride)/dibutyl adipate/ionic liquid gels operating at a low applied voltage

Naohiro Terasawa and Hirosato Monobe

Mater. Adv., 2024,5, 4715-4719. DOI: 10.1039/D4MA00143E

Finely tuning the self-assembled architectures of liquid crystal polymers by molecular engineering: phase transitions derived from terminal group variations

Wenhuan Yao, Yanxia Wang, Lansheng Liu, Anzhi Ma, Jie Zhao, Zhengrui Ma, Lanying Zhang and Ruochen Lan

Mater. Adv., 2024,5, 3450-3458. DOI: 10.1039/D3MA01185B

 

We hope you enjoy reading the full themed collection here.

 

Did you know?

At Materials Advances, our themed collections are built by collaboration between our Guest Editors and expert Associate Editors. Our Guest Editors guide the scope and curate the contributions in our collections but all submissions are handled through peer review by our team of resident Associate Editors. This means that as an author you receive a consistent experience, and as a reader you can trust the quality of the science being presented.

If you have an idea for a topical collection in your research field, we’d love to hear from you! Get in touch here.

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Welcoming Professor Keith Butler to the Journal of Materials Chemistry A and Materials Advances Advisory Boards

Keith Butler studied an undergraduate degree in Chemistry at Trinity College Dublin, graduating in 2004. He then completed a PhD at UCL, graduating in 2010. Following this, Keith carried out post-doctoral research in the University of Sheffield and the University of Bath, working on simulations of photovoltaics and transparent conductive oxides.

During his time at the University of Bath, Keith became interested in machine learning for the discovery and analysis of new materials. In 2018 he moved to the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory where he was involved in setting up the scientific machine learning group (SciML). In 2022 Keith moved to Queen Mary University of London as a Senior Lecturer in Green Energy Materials. In 2023 Keith re-joined UCL Chemistry as Associate Professor.

Keith’s research focuses on using a combination of data-driven methods (such as deep learning and Bayesian statistics) and quantum mechanics calculations to design new materials on computers and to help accelerate the experimental characterisation of materials. His group (the Materials Design and Informatics Group) work with other academics, national facilities and companies. Keith is a keen advocate of open science and open software and is involved in the development of several community packages. In his spare time, Keith is (overly) obsessed with fermentation; he keeps a stable of several kombucha SOCBYs and will probably try to pickle your lunch if you’re not careful!

 

An interview with Professor Butler

What does it mean to you to join the Advisory Board of Journal of Materials Chemistry A and Materials Advances?

It’s a real honour to join this Advisory Board. I am a big fan of the RSC publishing journals and think that they have been a great service to the research community in materials chemistry over the years. So, to have an opportunity to contribute to these publications and to potentially help to shape how they develop is really exciting for me.

 

What is the current biggest challenge you face in your field?

I work a lot with machine learning for materials modelling and characterisation and this is a very fast-moving field right now. I think that one of our biggest challenges is distinguishing the really important work from the noise or even worse from the work that is not properly done. As this tends to be highly interdisciplinary work, it is often hard for a single person to have the expertise to judge all aspects fully. A materials chemist may not know a variational autoencoder from a diffusion model, and likewise a computer scientist may not know a halogen from a pnictide. In this case, high-quality peer reviewed publication becomes more important than ever, providing a seal of quality that researchers know that they can trust.

 

Why do you feel that researchers should choose to publish their work in Journal of Materials Chemistry A and/or Materials Advances?

I think that these are highly respected, widely read and trusted journals. When I think of following the latest in energy materials research (which is my main materials science interest) these are some of the first journals in my RSS feed. I know that my peers also follow these journals closely and respect the research that is published in them. So, I would say for high visibility with respectability, JMC A and Materials Advances are great places to publish. In addition, the very reasonable APCs for Gold Open Access are very attractive to me, as I am a big believer in Open Science, but find that it is sometimes a costly standard to meet. It’s great that the RSC makes open access more attainable to all researchers.

 

Can you tell us about one of your latest Journal of Materials Chemistry A publications?

One of my more recent publications was last year looking at hybrid halide perovskites. I’ve been working on these materials for probably about 10 years now and there is still so much about them that we are yet to properly understand. In this paper we were looking at a particular alloy of this system where the A-site of the perovskite is a mixture of formamadinium and methyl ammonium molecules and the X site is a mixture of iodine and bromine anions. This mixture is particularly interesting as it has been shown to increase the efficiency of solar cells made with halide perovskite absorber layers. The study uses a range of computational modelling techniques to look at this structure and reveals an interplay of the effects of the structure on the dynamic and thermodynamic properties of the halide perovskite alloys. This kind of atomistic understanding is critical as researchers strive to design more stable and efficient perovskite mixtures for cheap and effective solar cells.

Mixed-anion mixed-cation perovskite (FAPbI3)0.875(MAPbBr3)0.125: an ab initio molecular dynamics study
Eduardo Menéndez-Proupin, Shivani Grover, Ana L. Montero-Alejo, Scott D. Midgley, Keith T. Butler and Ricardo Grau-Crespo
J. Mater. Chem. A, 2022,10, 9592-9603. DOI: 10.1039/D1TA10860C
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Welcoming Professor Chuanlai Xu to the Journal of Materials Chemistry B and Materials Advances Advisory Boards

 

Professor Chuanlai Xu is a Distinguished Professor at Jiangnan University in China. He is a passionate educator and a highly successful entrepreneur who has transferred academic discoveries to real societal impact on food safety and drug abuse. His research focuses on the development of nanomaterials and biomaterials for antibody engineering and diagnostics. He has made three key contributions to medical and biological engineering:

1. Developing chiral nanoparticles as immune adjuvants

Nanoparticle chirality presents a captivating avenue for exploring their potential as vaccine adjuvants. These intricately structured particles offer unique opportunities to fine-tune immune responses and enhance vaccine efficacy. Professor Xu pioneered the development of chiral nanoparticles using circularly polarized light. His lab identified the key receptors on immune cells for chirality-dependent immune responses. They found that chiral nanoparticles as adjuvants substantially enhance the efficacy of vaccines and can boost the production of antibodies (1.4 times faster immune cell maturation and 44.8 times greater IgG production) compared to the conventional aluminium or Freud adjuvant.

2. Developing antibodies for small molecules

Small molecules typically do not elicit an immune response and generate antibodies on their own. Linking them to larger biomolecules, such as proteins or peptides, can effectively induce antibody production, a strategy known as hapten-carrier conjugation. Professor Xu’s lab pioneers the development of antibodies for heavy metal ions. To help fight the current opioid crisis in the US, he has developed a series of highly specific monoclonal antibodies against fentanyl and its analogues such as Thiofentanyl, Norfentanyl, Acetylfentanyl, Para-fluorofentanyl, Acrylfentanyl, 4-fluoroisobutyrfentanyl, Ocfentanyl, Carfentanil, Sufentanil, Furanylfentanyl.

3. Formulating antibody production media

Antibody quality has been a chronic problem in biomedical research and clinical diagnostics. Factors influencing antibody quality such as batch-to-batch variability, specificity, and sensitivity are well-known, but matrix mismatch between the conditions of antibody screening and antibody uses is often overlooked. Professor Xu’s lab screened cell lines that gradually adapt to the application environment during cell culture to produce monoclonal antibodies that can tolerate the complex matrices during application. Based on this innovation, he has built the world’s largest small-molecule antibody resource bank (more than 20,000 cell lines).

 

Overall, Professor Xu is a pioneer in developing innovative materials and methods for antibody engineering. He has published more than 500 papers in high-visibility journals including Nature, Nature Biomedical Engineering, Nature Catalysis, Nature Nanotechnology, Nature Aging, Nature Communications, JACS, Angewandte Chemie, and PNAS. Collectively, these papers have been cited ~24,000 times. He holds more than 300 issued patents and patent applications and is the recipient of many prestigious awards and fellowship recognitions, including World’s Best Scientists Ranking in Chemistry (2023), Highly Cited Researchers by Elsevier 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (2015), Fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (2023), Fellow of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (2023).

 

 

An interview with Chuanlai Xu

What does it mean to you to join the Advisory Board of Journal of Materials Chemistry B and Materials Advances?

I am truly honored and happy to join the Advisory Board of the prestigious Journal of Materials Chemistry B and Materials Advances, which publish high quality research at the interface of materials chemistry, biology and medicine. The unique opportunity to join the Advisory Board will enable me to represent the breadth of interests and diversity of the journals’ community more broadly, to actively promote the journals within the community and encourage potential authors to submit their best work if and when suitable, to provide feedback and advice on community perception of the journals, suggest improvements for consideration by the Editorial Board and act as a sounding board for proposed policy changes.

 

What is the current biggest challenge you face in your field?

Truly original research or discovery is greatly important.

For our team, can we cure neurodegenerative diseases?

Neurodegenerative diseases, in which nerve cells in the brain or nervous system lose their function and die, can cause great suffering. Millions of people each year experience pain and trauma from these diseases, the most common of which are Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. Interventions can reduce or alleviate symptoms but do not provide complete relief, and so far, there is no cure and no way to completely stop or reverse the progression of the disease. Age is an important risk factor – the likelihood of being diagnosed with a neurodegenerative disease increases exponentially as you get older. According to the World Health Organization, neurodegenerative diseases will become the second most common cause of death within the next two decades.

 

Why do you feel that researchers should choose to publish their work in Journal of Materials Chemistry B and/or Materials Advances?

Journal of Materials Chemistry B and Materials Advances are truly reputable and widely read interdisciplinary forums for publishing cutting-edge research on materials, chemistry, biology, and medicine, which maximizes the visibility and impact of scientific research.

 

Can you tell us about one of your latest Journal of Materials Chemistry B publication?

In this paper, the developed LFIA is applied to the specific identification and rapid detection of niacin in nutritional dietary supplements, thus meeting the market’s demand for efficient niacin detection methods.

Immunological strip sensor for the rapid determination of niacin in dietary supplements and foods
Jialin Hu, Aihong Wu, Lingling Guo, Yongwei Feng, Liqiang Liu, Maozhong Sun, Aihua Qu, Hua Kuang, Chuanlai Xu and Liguang Xu
J. Mater. Chem. B, 2024,12, 691-700, DOI: 10.1039/D3TB02209A
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Order, disorder and ultrafast phenomena in functional solids

Read the new collection in Materials Advances

We are delighted to introduce our new themed collection focusing on order, disorder, and ultrafast phenomena in functional solids.

Guest Edited by Ernest Pastor (CNRS, IPR, University of Rennes, France), Hiroko Tokoro (University of Tsukuba, Japan), and Eric Collet (University of Rennes, CNRS, IPR, France)

 

A message from the Guest Editors

“In this collection we highlight work focusing on the implementation of advanced experimental tools to characterize defects and the development of robust theoretical frameworks to understand the role of disorder. Further advances in these areas are needed to push the boundaries of optical control of materials. However, the recent developments in laser techniques, large-scale facilities and computational capabilities offer an exciting outlook for the characterisation and control of disorder in functional solids.

We hope the research highlighted in this issue will be useful for the multiple communities seeking to understand and control disorder in solids in order to instil new functionality that powers the technologies of the future.”

 

A small selection of the papers are featured below:

Coherent X-ray imaging of stochastic dynamics
Arnab Sarkar and Allan S. Johnson
10.1039/D4MA00154K
Multistep transitions in spin crossover materials without long-range spin state order from dimensional reduction
Gian Ruzzi, Jace Cruddas and Benjamin J. Powell
10.1039/D3MA01057K
Ultrafast variation of the polarized state in proton-π electron coupled ferroelectric cocrystal Phz-H2ca
Akihiro Sugisawa, Tsugumi Umanodan, Hongwu Yu, Tadahiko Ishikawa, Shin-ya Koshihara, Sachio Horiuchi and Yoichi Okimoto
10.1039/D3MA00317E

 

We hope you enjoy reading this themed collection!

 

Did you know?

At Materials Advances, our themed collections are built by collaboration between our Guest Editors and expert Associate Editors. Our Guest Editors guide the scope and curate the contributions in our collections but all submissions are handled through peer review by our team of resident Associate Editors. This means that as an author you receive a consistent experience, and as a reader you can trust the quality of the science being presented.

If you have an idea for a topical collection in your research field, we’d love to hear from you! Get in touch here.

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Biomaterials for Innate Immunity collection

Read the new collection in Journal of Materials Chemistry B and Materials Advances

We are delighted to introduce our new themed collection focusing on biomaterials for innate immunity!

Guest Edited by Assistant Professor Erika Moore (University of Maryland, USA) and Assistant Professor Shreya Raghavan (Texas A&M University, USA)

This collection features research covering application of biomaterials engineered to study innate immune function or modulate phenotypes of immune cells in regeneration and disease.

 

 

A small selection of the papers are featured below:

Single-cell analysis of innate immune cell mechanics: an application to cancer immunology
Tom M.J. Evers, Antoinette van Weverwijk, Karin E. de Visser and Alireza Mashaghi
Mater. Adv., 2024, Advance Article, DOI: 10.1039/D3MA01107K

Galactomannan-graft-poly(methyl methacrylate) nanoparticles induce an anti-inflammatory phenotype in human macrophages
Alejandro Sosnik, Ivan Zlotver and Ella Peled
J. Mater. Chem. B, 2023, 11, 8471-8483, DOI: 10.1039/D3TB01397A

Engineering in vitro models of cystic fibrosis lung disease using neutrophil extracellular trap inspired biomaterials
Allison Boboltz, Sydney Yang and Gregg A. Duncan
J. Mater. Chem. B, 2023,11, 9419-9430, DOI: 10.1039/D3TB01489D

 

We hope you enjoy reading this themed collection!

 

Did you know?

At Journal of Materials Chemistry B and Materials Advances, our themed collections are built by collaboration between our Guest Editors and expert Associate Editors. Our Guest Editors guide the scope and curate the contributions in our collections but all submissions are handled through peer review by our team of resident Associate Editors. This means that as an author you receive a consistent experience, and as a reader you can trust the quality of the science being presented.

If you have an idea for a topical collection in your research field, we’d love to hear from you! Get in touch here.

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Open call for papers: Mechanical-induced catalysis and catalysts advances

We are delighted to announce an open call for papers to our new themed collection on Mechanical-induced catalysis and catalysts advances, to be published in Materials Advances.

MA Call for papers promo graphic with extended deadline.

 

Mechanical-induced catalysis is gaining increasing attention with its potential to broaden the scope of new catalyst materials, leading to its increasingly widespread use for materials development and applications. This themed collection broadly focuses on mechanical induced catalysis and catalysts advances including (but not limited to):

  • Development of nanomaterials with tailored properties (e.g., shape, size, composition) for enhanced mechanical-induced catalytic performance
  • Piezo- and tribo-electric nanogenerators for catalysis
  • Design and characterisation of single-atom catalysts
  • Mechanistic studies of mechanical-induced catalysis (e.g., in situ, computational modelling)
  • Novel and/or sustainable approaches for mechanochemical catalyst development
  • Scalability of synthesis using mechanochemical techniques

 

Submit before 1st September 2024

 

If you are interested in contributing to this collection please get in touch with the Editorial Office.

Materials Advances publishes quality research across the breadth of materials science. It received its 2023 impact factor of 5.2 (Journal Citation Reports 2024, Clarivate Analytics).

Please note that accepted manuscripts will be subject to an article-processing charge (APC) unless your institute has an existing agreement with the RSC that covers publications in our gold open access journals. More information about charges, discounts, and waivers are available here. Corresponding authors who are not already members of the Royal Society of Chemistry are entitled to one year’s Affiliate membership as part of their APC. Find out more about our member benefits.

 

 

This themed collection is Guest Edited by:

Photo of Guest Editor Wei Tang.

Wei Tang

Chinese Academy of Sciences, China

Wei Tang received his B.S. degree from the Physical Department and Ph.D. degree from the Microelectronic Department from Peking University in 2008 and 2013. He is a professor at the Beijing Institute of Nanoenergy and Nanosystems, Chinese Academic of Sciences. His research interests include interface electron transfer and its applications in wearable electronics, contact-electro-catalysis, and energy harvesting devices.

Photo of Guest Editor Christian Falconi.Christian Falconi

University of Rome Tor Vergata, Italy

ORCID: 0000-0002-5220-4588

Christian Falconi is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Electronic Engineering, University of Rome Tor Vergata, Rome, Italy. He received his M.Sc. (cum laude) and Ph.D. degrees in Electronic Engineering from the University of Rome Tor Vergata in, respectively, 1998 and 2001. He has contributed as corresponding/co-corresponding author papers on leading journals in nanosystems (NanoEnergy), electronics (IEEE TCAS II), sensors (Sensors and Actuators A / B) and interdisciplinary journals (Nature Communications, Advanced Materials, ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces…). Since 2013 he is Adjunct Professor at the Sungkyunkwan University (SKKU, South Korea). Since 2017 he is Adjunct Professor at the Beijing Institute of Nanoenergy and Nanosystems – Chinese Academy of Sciences (BINN – CAS, China). He has visited top international Universities worldwide, including the University of Linkoping (1 month), TU Delft (7 months), Georgia Tech (14 months), SKKU (1 month) and BINN – CAS (7 weeks). His research interests include analog electronics, electronic interfaces, sensors, nanogenerators, micro-nano-systems, electronic devices and biomedical engineering.

Photo of Guest Editor Ziming WangZiming Wang

Chinese Academy of Sciences, China

ORCID: 0000-0003-4731-6224

Ziming Wang is currently a postdoctoral research fellow at the Beijing Institute of Nanoenergy and Nanosystems, Chinese Academic of Sciences. He received his Ph.D. degree in condensed matter physics from the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (UCAS), under the supervision of Prof. Zhong Lin Wang. His research interests include contact-electro-catalysis, self-powered sensors, and energy harvesting.

Photo of Guest Editor Sailin LiuSailin Liu

University of Adelaide, Australia

Dr Sailin Liu is committed to developing high-energy-density batteries with high safety and long cycling lives. During her Ph.D. study, she was specializing in frontier technologies of developing non-flammable electrolytes and stable electrode/electrolyte interface. Her current research interest is non-flammable organic electrolytes, electrolyte/electrode interface, aqueous rechargeable battery technology.

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Near-infrared-activated nanoparticles for localized anticancer drug delivery

To celebrate some of the excellent work that has been published in Materials Advances this year, we asked some of our authors to discuss their work in more detail. In this post, we hear from Dr Shazid Md. Sharker about their recently published article entitled “NIR-light-triggered delivery of doxorubicin-loaded PLGA nanoparticles for synergistic cancer therapy on DMBA/TPA induced tumor-bearing mice“.

Discover the key message from this article

 

Meet the author

 

Dr Shazid Md. Sharker obtained his PhD in 2016 from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Daejeon, South Korea. Dr Sharker got a research training experience from the School of Medicine, Stanford University, California, USA. Currently, he is working as an Associate Professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences at North South University (NSU), Dhaka, Bangladesh. Dr Sharker plans to continue exploring nanotechnology at NSU to expand his understanding of nanoscale biological interactions. He aims to develop polymer and liposome-based nanocarriers and discover new nanoparticles (NPs) having both therapeutic and diagnosing (theragnostic) applications.

 

 

An interview with the author

What aspect of your work are you most excited about at the moment and what do you find most challenging about your research?

Drug delivery technology is heavily reliant on technology; like others, I find excitement in developing or leveraging new tools, methods, or technologies that can enhance nanotechnology in drug delivery and its outcomes. Securing funding for research projects is a common challenge. Finding a balance between teaching responsibilities and research pursuits can be challenging for academics. Heavy teaching loads may limit the time available for focused research.

 

How do you feel about Materials Advances as a place to publish research on this topic?

The prospect of publishing in reputable journals and receiving recognition for one’s work can be a source of great satisfaction and motivation. It made me decide on an open-access journal like Materials Advances and a well-known publisher like RSC as a place to publish research on this topic.

 

Can you share one piece of career-related advice or wisdom with early career scientists?

The research career is like a journey, just like moving from one place to another. In both research and study, obstacles can be overcome, and new discoveries can be made, and a sense of progress and growth. A successful research career is not solely defined by the number of papers published but also by the ability to adapt, collaborate, and contribute meaningfully to their field and beyond. Cultivating a diverse skill set early in their career can position them for long-term success and make them more adaptable to the evolving landscape of scientific research. While becoming an expert in their chosen area is crucial, having a range of complementary skills can enhance scientists’ versatility and make them more resilient in a rapidly changing research landscape.

 

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Improving synthetic dye degradation with cocatalyst-enhanced Zn-doped Cu2O photocatalysts

To celebrate some of the excellent work that has recently been published in Materials Advances, we asked some of our authors to discuss their work in more detail. In this post, we hear from Setia Budi and his co-authors about their recently published article entitled “Enhanced photocatalytic activity of CoNi-decorated Zn-doped Cu2O synthesized by electrodeposition technique“.

 

Meet the authors

 

 

Setia Budi received his Ph.D. in materials Science from Universitas Indonesia in 2017. While pursuing his Ph.D., he conducted research at the School of Materials Science, Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (JAIST) through a sandwich-like program. Currently, he serves as a lecturer in the Department of Chemistry at Universitas Negeri Jakarta, where he leads a research group specializing in the synthesis of nanostructured films for electrocatalyst, photocatalysts, and bio-applications. His research is dedicated to uncovering strategies for enhancing the performance and durability of these films.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mega Gladiani Sutrisno graduated in chemistry from the Universitas Negeri Jakarta in Indonesia. In 2021 she began her independent career as an Assistant Researcher at The Centre of Innovation, where she worked on the synthesis and catalytic activity characterization of cuprous oxide doped semiconductor nanomaterials. Currently she is working to elucidate the improved photocatalytic activity and stability and semiconductor materials for photodegradation of synthetic dyes.

 

 

 

 

An interview with the authors

What aspect of your work are you most excited about at the moment and what do you find most challenging about your research?

I am currently most excited about the remarkable advancements in nanostructured films for photocatalysts, electrocatalysts, and bio-applications. However, my research’s primary challenge is to boost the catalytic activity and longevity of these films.

 

How do you feel about Materials Advances as a place to publish research on this topic?

I view Materials Advances as an excellent platform for publishing our research on this topic due to its focus on materials science and its potential to reach a broad audience of researchers and professionals in the field.

 

Can you share one piece of career-related advice or wisdom for early career scientists?

As an earlier scientist, I may not have profound wisdom to offer. Nevertheless, I’d like to share a valuable piece of advice: stay curious, persistent, and open to collaboration.

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Cryogenic Characterisation of Calcium Phosphate Cement/Hydrolgel Biomaterials

Probing the microporosity and 3D spatial distribution of calcium phosphate cement/hydrogel biomaterials using FIB/SEM at cryogenic temperatures

Mouad Essani, Baptiste Charbonnier, Nicolas Stephant, Hilel Moussi, Pierre Weiss, Jean Le Bideau and Patricia Abellan

Mater. Adv., 2023,4, 2474-2486 DOI: D2MA00966H

 

 

Meet the authors

 

Mouad Essani received his Ph.D. in physics and analytical chemistry from Sorbonne University in Paris in 2020, where he worked on the characterization of uranium microparticles in the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission. His thesis work was mainly focused on the combined use of electron microscopy, X-ray spectroscopy and Monte-Carlo simulation to investigate both the microstructure and elementary composition of powder used in nuclear fuels. In 2021, he was a postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute of materials Jean Rouxel in Nantes under the supervision of Dr. Patricia Abellan. During his postdoc, he investigated the behaviour of synthetic bone substitutes using cryo-electron microscopy. He is currently a research engineer in the University of Paris-Est-Creteil where he applies electron microscopy to study atmospheric particles, aerosols and their impact on the environment.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Patricia Abellan joined the Institute of Materials of Nantes (IMN at Nantes University) with a Junior Talent chair of excellence in 2019 and got tenured as a CNRS research scientist in 2020. She received her BSc in Physics from the Aalborg University (Denmark) and her Ph.D. in Materials Sciences from the Autonomous University of Barcelona and Institute of Materials Science of Barcelona (ICMAB-CSIC), Spain, in 2011. She has held postdoctoral positions at the University of California – Davis and at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, USA, before taking a staff research scientist position at the SuperSTEM Laboratory (Daresbury, UK) in 2015. Her research focuses on the study of solid-liquid interfaces on hybrid and biomaterials using electron microscopy as well as on the elucidation of the radiation chemistry and radiation physics driving the processes at liquid-solid interfaces induced by the electron beam in an electron microscope.

 

 

 

 

 

 

An interview with the authors

What aspect of your work are you most excited about at the moment and what do you find most challenging about your research?

I believe that I am particularly excited about the application of electron microscopy and spectroscopy tools to investigate atmospheric particles. I find topics related to this field both very challenging and interesting. Studying the impact of such particles on the environment constitutes an important aspect for our ecosystem.

 

How do you feel about Materials Advances as a place to publish research on this topic?

I believe that environment friendly processes request the development of materials that have lower impact on the environment. These materials should be investigated in terms of their chemistry, microstructure, etc. I think that research in that field fits perfectly within the scope of Materials Advances.

 

Can you share one piece of career-related advice or wisdom with other, early career scientists?

I consider myself as an early career scientist so I don’t think I can provide much wisdom. The only advice I can give is to never abandon ideas (in research of in life in general) that we believe in.

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Journal of Materials Chemistry C and Materials Advances welcome Professor Maia G. Vergniory to our Editorial Boards

Journal of Materials Chemistry C and Materials Advances are delighted to welcome Professor Maia G. Vergniory from the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids, Germany, to our Editorial Boards as a new Associate Editor.

 

 

“I look forward to working with the members of the Journal of Materials Chemistry C and Materials Advances team to advance the field of topological and inorganic chemistry through these journals.”

 

Maia G. Vergniory is a research professor at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids in Dresden, Germany. Her prior positions include the Donostia International Physics Center in Spain, the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory in California, and the Max Planck Institute for Microstructure Physics in Halle, Germany. She has been awarded the “Most outstanding physicist of Spain” in 2018 by the Spanish Superior Research Council, a L’Oréal-UNESCO award for Women in Science in 2017, the Ikerbasque (Basque research) award for the best scientific contribution of 2019, and in 2022 was elected Fellow of the American Physical Society.

Her group is interested in a variety of problems in condensed matter theory oriented to material realization. The main focus lies on the study of topological phenomena in bosonic and fermionic lattices with and without interactions. Areas of research include the study of topological phases of matter, design of new materials, photonic crystals and search of experimental signatures of topological phases.

 

Join us in welcoming Professor Maia G. Vergniory to our Editorial Boards!

 

Submit your best work to Professor Vergniory and our team of Associate Editors on Journal of Materials Chemistry C and Materials Advances now! Check out our author guidelines for information on our article types or find out more about the advantages of publishing in a Royal Society of Chemistry journal.

Keep up to date with our latest articles, reviews, collections & more by following us on Twitter, Facebook or by signing up to our E-Alerts.

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