TWINFUSYON NEWSLETTER III August 2017
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August 2017 TWINFUSYON NEWSLETTER III August 2017 Dear TWINFUSYON friends, We are already halfway through the project in biosensing, as well as place of women in and we would like to share with you our science. results during this time. Two schools and a You can also find information about our workshop, as well as secondments and oth- plans for upcoming events during Autumn er cross-fertilisation activities helped us to semester 2017 here. improve the research capacity of the young institute CEITEC MU as well as advance re- search in the field of optronic biosensing. We would also like to offer you several arti- cles prepared by the TWINFUSYON project members on topics important for us, such as biofunctionalisation and measurements TWINFUSYON team 1 | TWINFUSYON Newsletter www.twinfusyon.eu August 2017 CONTENT HALFWAY THROUGH THE PROJECT 3 WHAT‘S UP IN BIOSENSING 3 3 Two Kinds of Masseless Carriers in Cadmium Arsenide 4 Best-Practices for Biofunctionalisation of Innovative Materials 6 Analysis of needs and common problems with agreed solutions on significant parameter measure- ments for biosensing WOMEN IN/OUT OF THE STEM FIELDS/FOCUS 8 8 Introduction 10 Perspective by a woman Post Doc in physics 11 My experience of going to a technical college and studying technical physics 12 On the way to open, international, fair and friendly working environment TWINFUSYON NEWS 13 13 Winter school and workshop New Frontiers in 2D materials: Approaches & Applications 14 TWINFUSYON secondment UPCOMING EVENTS 14 14 From Structures to Optical functions: Layered Materials serving biosensing 15 EPIOTICS-15 International School of Solid State Physics (co-organised) PROJECT DISSEMINATION 15 INTERESTING PUBLICATIONS 16 This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 692034. This Newsletter reflects only the author’s view and the Research Executive Agency is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains. 2 | TWINFUSYON Newsletter www.twinfusyon.eu August 2017 HALFWAY THROUGH THE PROJECT . During the first half of the project, the TWINFUSY- of excellent research institutions abroad that have ON team, with their specific expertise in different been visited by researchers from CEITEC, and also fields, has contributed substantially to the perfor- by foreign scientists visiting CEITEC. mance of CEITEC mainly following three directions: Furthermore, the collaborative links created in the (i) by direct transfer of knowledge via guest lec- scope of the TWINUSYON project have expanded tures at CEITEC, (ii) by performing joint research the research profile of CEITEC towards novel re- activities and trainings with CEITEC researchers in search directions in current condensed matter various laboratories, and (iii) by disseminating in- physics, notably in 3D Dirac semimetals in cooper- formation about CEITEC and TWINFUSYON actions ation with LNCMI-CNRS, in graphene and related via various channels at international level. A num- materials and their biofunctionalisation in cooper- ber of results were already achieved, resulting in ation with CNR-NANOTEC and in plasmonics and joint publications in international peer-reviewed new model analysis in cooperation with JKU. scientific journals and presentation at internation- al conferences. Advancing CEITEC to an internationally acknowl- edged excellent research institution will conse- TWINFUSYON has organised the School and Work- quently have a positive impact on overall research shop on „New Frontiers in 2D materials: Approach- and innovation potential of the South Moravian es & Applications” and the school „Advanced region in the Czech Republic, which aims to be- School on Modelling and Statistic for Bioprocess- come one of the high-quality innovation centres in es”, which contributed to CEITEC research capaci- Europe. ty, and also attracted students and researchers from various institutions across Europe. Engage- The social relevance of TWINFUSYON lies also in ments of general public has occurred through the establishment of a consolidated scientific and TWINFUSYON stands at the „Research Nights” technical platform in the area of multifunctional events in various countries. nanomaterials for biosensing that can be exploited in various fields of food safety, security, environ- The research profile of CEITEC has been visibly mental monitoring and life science, for a healthier raised by the activities of the consortium; within society and for generating interest of companies Czech Republic, this is best documented by the with activities in the field of biosensing with con- recognition reached at the prominent research sequent open opportunities of jobs for the trained institutions in the country (primarily Institute of young scientists. Physics ASCR, and Faculty of mathematics and physics CU, Prague). The same is true for a number WHAT‘S UP IN BIOSENSING . Two Kinds of Masseless Carriers in Cadmium Arsenide by Ana Akrap, University of Geneva and Milan ble Dirac cones are predicted to exist around the G Orlita, CNRS LNCMI, Grenoble point of the Brillouin zone. However, a conundrum Instead of obeying Schrödinger equation, in some appeared regarding the scale at which the Dirac materials the low-energy excitations behave as cones appear, unresolved despite a large number massless Dirac particles. Three-dimensional (3D) of experiments. Different spectroscopies claimed Dirac semimetals represent one such class of ma- different outcomes; most prominently ARPES indi- terials, constitutuing the closest archetype of truly cated a large energy spread of Dirac cones (several relativistic massless systems. Cadmium arsenide, hundred meV) while STM/STS measurements im- Cd3As2, is the prime candidate for a 3D Dirac ma- plied that a scale at least one order of magnitude terial that is stable at ambient conditions. Two sta- smaller. 3 | TWINFUSYON Newsletter www.twinfusyon.eu August 2017 Our magneto-optical experi- conical feature. These results ments lift the controversy of can be quantitatively ex- the electronic bands of cadmi- plained within the standard um arsenide. We show that Kane model developed in the two kinds of massless carriers past for description of ordi- can exist in this material, Dirac nary zinc-blende semiconduc- and Kane. In other words, the tors, leading us to conclude band structure includes not the presence of massless Kane only one, but two types of electrons in this material. conical features, see Fig. 1. We While the symmetry-protected show that the large cone ob- Dirac electrons may still be served by ARPES is not a Dirac present as well, our experi- cone, but results in fact from ments limit their range to a the standard Kane model ap- fairly small energy range plied to a semiconductor with (several tens of meV). a nearly vanishing band gap. Related publication: Our experiments explore the magneto-optical response of Magneto-optical signature of single crystalline cadmium ar- massless Kane electrons in senide, with two different ori- Cd3As2 entations and two different A. Akrap, M. Hakl, S. Tchouma- positions of Fermi level. Apply- Figure 1: The schematic view of electronic bands kov, I. Crassee, J. Kuba, M.O. ing a strong magnetic field, the in Cd3As2 with two types of conical features. Goerbig, C.C. Homes, O. Caha, system driven into the quatum J. Novak, F. Teppe, W. Desrat, limit. In such a case, electrons occupy only the S. Koohpayeh, L. Wu, N.P. Armitage, A. Nateprov, lowest electronic Landau level and only the funda- E. Arushanov, Q.D. Gibson, R.J. Cava, D. van der mental cyclotron resonance mode is active. Its Marel, B.A. Piot, C. Faugeras, G. Martinez, M. Po- specific character allows us to eliminate with cer- temski, M. Orlita, Physical Review Letters 117, tainty the Dirac carrier response. Moreover, no 136401 (2016). significant anisotropy is observed in the observed . Best-Practices for Biofunctionalisation of Innovative Materials by Maria Losurdo, CNR Nanotec and among the novel 2D-materials, semicon- The major challenge in developing biosensors is to ducting 2D TMDs transition metal dicalchogenides provide a high specificity to target biomolecules (MoS2, WS2, MoSe2, and WSe2) are gaining atten- through biofunctionalised probes of materials and tion from scientific community. nanoparticles that have a strong affinity for the In addition, inorganic nanoparticles, such as mag- target biomolecule while suppressing non-specific netic and plasmonic nanoparticles, can be grown interactions. on the surface of graphene and related 2D materi- Among the plethora of materials and nanostruc- als, enabling further expansion of functional 2D- tures that are currently applied or investigated for based nanocomposites with interesting optical and bioapplications, functionalised graphene, gra- magnetic properties that can be useful for multi- modal technologies for biosensing, imaging and phene-based nanocomposites, novel 2D-materials as well as plasmonic nanoparticles are gaining in- imaging-guided cancer therapeutic applications. creasing attention in biomedical applications be- Among the various nanoparticles, of particular in- cause of their unique and highly enriched physical terest are plasmonic gold nanoparticles (Au NPs) and chemical properties. Following graphene, an that offer a suitable platform for multifunctionali- atlas of other 2D materials have emerged recently, sation with a wide range of organic or biological 4 | TWINFUSYON Newsletter www.twinfusyon.eu August 2017 ligands for