Nanoscale & Nanoscale Advances Blog

To celebrate some of the excellent work that has recently been published in Nanoscale Advances, we asked some of our authors to discuss their work in more detail. In this post, we hear from Daria Miliaieva and her co-authors about their recently published article entitled “Absolute energy levels in nanodiamonds of different origins and surface chemistries“.

Discover the key message from this article

Meet the authors

Daria Miliaieva obtained her PhD in Materials and electrotechnology from the Czech Technical University in Prague in 2019 and was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Czech Academy of Sciences from 2020 to 2023. In 2023 she started her Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship at Taltech in Estonia, working on novel chalcogenide materials for photovoltaics. Most of her interest is drawn to analyzing energetic bands in materials by a combination of techniques like UPS/XPS, Kelvin probe, electrochemical spectroscopy and DFT calculations.

Bohuslav Rezek graduated from Physics at the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics at Charles University in Prague in 1996. In 2001 he obtained PhD at the Czech Academy of Sciences (CAS) in the study of charge transport in silicon thin films for photovoltaics by using scanning probe techniques. After his PhD, he was doing research on diamond devices and interfaces in Germany, Switzerland and Japan. In 2006 he became a research team leader and Purkyne Fellow at the Institute of Physics CAS. In 2015 he became the head of the Physics department at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering of the Czech Technical University in Prague. In 2019 he became a full professor there. His research is focused on correlative microscopic and micro-spectroscopic analyses of semiconductor and organic materials towards opto-electronic and bio-electronic applications.

Jan Čermák obtained his PhD in optics and optoelectronics in 2010 at Charles University, Prague. He works at the Institute of Physics, Czech Academy of Sciences within the Department of Semiconductors. His scientific research is focused on the optoelectronic properties of carbon-based materials (polymers, diamond) related to photovoltaics. His approach to that is mainly via advanced electronic modes of atomic force microscopy under controlled illumination.

Jaroslav Kuliček obtained a PhD in macromolecular chemistry from the Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava, Slovakia, in 2017 and was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Slovak Academy of Sciences, Polymer Institute from 2017 to 2018. In 2018 he started his Postdoctoral Fellowship at Czech Technical University in Prague, focused on optoelectronic characterization of photoactive materials using micro-spectroscopic methods such as Confocal Raman and Photoluminescence, AFM/photo-KPFM, Kelvin Probe and Air Photoemission Spectroscopy.

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 focusing on the investigation of optoelectronic properties of the materials that can be useful in photovoltaics. The most exciting is the speed of photovoltaic field development at all levels from the fundamental research with the novel materials predictions and discoveries and the new mechanism of charge generation and transport to the applications of PV materials in the new areas like agrivoltaics. It is exciting and at the same time challenging to keep up with the pace of the photovoltaic field development.

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

My current research is on the determination of the electronic structure of the nanoparticles and establishing the practical consequences of it. Nanoscale Advances covering nanoparticles and nanoelectronics is an appropriate journal to publish research on nanoparticle electronic properties.

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

Move on when frustrated about the research, sometimes understanding things comes with time and persistence leads to success and perfection. Make use of all possible research stays and conferences to develop your skills and increase your chances of meeting the right people (for you) for making a good science together!

An infographic depicting a new model for investigating the properties of hot charge carriers at semiconductor surfaces

A self-consistent model to link surface electronic band structure to the voltage dependence of hot electron induced molecular nanoprobe experiments

Peter A. Sloan and Kristina R. Rusimova

Nanoscale Adv., 2022,4, 4880-4885, DOI: 10.1039/D2NA00644H

Meet the authors

Dr Kristina R. Rusimova obtained her PhD in atomic manipulation with the scanning tunnelling microscope from the University of Bath in 2016. Following a short postdoctoral position in photonics, she joined the Department of Physics at the University of Bath as an independent Prize Fellow in 2018 and as a tenured Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in 2021. In 2022 she was part of the team awarded the Royal Society of Chemistry’s Faraday Division Horizon Prize for the discovery of chiroptical harmonic scattering. Her research interests include single molecule manipulation, quantum optics, advanced materials, and speciality optical fibres.

Dr Peter A. Sloan received an undergraduate Masters degree in Chemical Physics from the University of Edinburgh in 1999 and a PhD from the University of Birmingham in 2004. He was a Royal Society (International Outgoing) Fellow 2004-2005 in the group of Nobel Laureate Prof John C. Polanyi at the University of Toronto. He gained an independent Lectureship (Assistant Professor) position at the University of Bath in 2010 and was promoted to Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in 2016. Peter’s research has focused on using atomic manipulation with an STM to measure and uncover the physics of hot-electrons at semi-conductor surfaces. He is also a founder and the overall Director of the Bath Physics Observatory.

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

• Dr Peter Sloan: Our work has the chance to show that state-of-the-art atomic manipulation can be used to help real-world problems. The most challenging aspect is learning how to make true measurement of what we’re after, rather than say having the influence of the arbitrary experimental parameters or limitations of the apparatus muddy the waters.
• Dr Kristina Rusimova: Experimental automation has been the backbone for most of our recent scientific breakthroughs. I am excited about the prospect of opening up our automation protocols to the scanning probe microscopy community worldwide through open source software and combining them with machine learning algorithms, which could push surface science to an entirely new level.

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

• Dr Peter Sloan: Nanoscale Advances is a fantastic place to publish. It is highly regarded, fast reviewing and we had some of the best, most fair, and rigorous reports we’ve had.
• Dr Kristina Rusimova: The submission and review process have been smooth, efficient, and rigorous. Nanoscale Advances has a well-established portfolio of scanning probe microscopy research, and our paper sits nicely within it.

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

• Dr Peter Sloan: Work with good people. Have a work-life balance rather than think you have a work-life balance.
• Dr Kristina Rusimova: Don’t be scared of rejection and learn how (and when) to say “no”. Have fun with your science.

An infographic highlighting gelatin-based nanoprobes that can detect cancerous cells during image-guided surgery

Protease-activated indocyanine green nanoprobes for intraoperative NIR fluorescence imaging of primary tumors
Kyekyoon (Kevin) Kim, Viktor Gruev, Hyungsoo Choi et al.
Nanoscale Adv., 2022,4, 4041-4050, DOI: 10.1039/d2na00276k

Meet the authors

This article reports the collaborative efforts of two research laboratories: Thin Film and Charged Particles (TFCP) Research Lab (PIs. Kyekyoon (Kevin) Kim and Hyungsoo Choi) and Biosensors Lab (PI. Viktor Gruev) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. TFCP Lab consists of multidisciplinary biomedical researchers formulating versatile biomaterial-based micro/nanoparticles incorporating drugs, fluorophores, and live-cells for various biomedical applications including the treatment of type-1 diabetes, ischemic stroke, and cancer. The scientists in Biosensors Lab are developing novel bio-inspired imaging technologies, highly sensitive and capable of differentiating multiple tumor-specific fluorophores, to provide surgeons with enhanced intraoperative imaging experiences during cancer surgery.

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

The exciting part is having opportunities to collaborate with many experts from different fields of science and engineering. The harmonious teamwork and support allow us to explore new ideas and conduct innovative research. The challenging part is finding the balance between innovation and clinical translation. Novelty in research offers new insights, but that wouldn’t necessarily lead to it being clinically acceptable. To ensure that we are doing translational research, we have to consider its relevance and applicability to patient-oriented healthcare.

(b) How do you feel about Nanoscale Advances as a place to publish research on this topic?

Nanoscale Advances is one of the fastest-growing journals, encompassing a wide scope of topics in nanotechnology. With that being said, we are excited to be able to showcase our work on such a platform.