The Prix Schläfli, awarded by the Swiss Academy of Sciences (SCNAT), is one of the oldest prizes in Switzerland and rewards outstanding dissertations in the natural sciences since 1866. Bestowed every three years, the Prix Schläfli in Physics goes this year to advances in the control of ferroelectric order using light.

For the first time, ETH Zurich Materials Scientists are measuring the rolling friction of tiny, micrometre-sized particles. These measurements permit them to better understand everyday products such as concrete.

Professor Nicola Spaldin, head of the Materials Theory group and a pioneer in multiferroic materials, will receive the prestigious Carus Medal from the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina.

On 27 March 2025, around 20 postdocs and senior scientists gathered at ETH Hönggerberg for an insightful session on grant proposal writing. Prof. Laura De Lorenzis and Prof. Salvador Pané i Vidal from D-MAVT covered the general principles of grant writing and successful examples from European Commission and Swiss programmes.

Join the SMW Soccer Cup - Register now! ⚽️ May 9, 2025, 14:30–17:30, Hönggerberg Sports Field, Snacks, drinks and a great atmosphere

The conversion of CO₂ into e-fuels by light offers a sustainable solution to close the carbon cycle. Researchers at the Laboratory for Nanometallurgy have pioneered an innovative approach to plasmon-assisted catalytic CO₂ conversion using nanoscale disordered network metamaterials.

At its meeting of 6/7 March 2025 the ETH Board appointed Professor Athina Anastasaki (*1988), currently Tenure Track Assistant Professor, as Associate Professor of Sustainable Polymers.

Polymer chemists at ETH Zurich have discovered a surprising way to virtually fully break down PMMA plastic – commonly known as acrylic glass – into its monomer building blocks. The process remains unaffected by the presence of additives.

On January 24, 2025, D-MATL celebrated their latest graduates at the Master’s degree graduation ceremony. It was a wonderful evening with an inspiring speech by Dr. Franziska Brem from Sensirion, a fun look back by the graduates and a celebration of all study achievements.

A biologist, a neuroscientist, a materials scientist and a physicist have each been awarded one of the prestigious grants of the Swiss National Science Foundation.

Researchers of the Laboratory for Mesoscopic Systems with colleagues at the Paul Scherrer Institute, the University of Oxford and the Max Plank Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids have developed a pioneering X-ray technique to probe the 3D orientation of a material’s building blocks at the nanoscale. The technique allows the visualization of crystal grains, grain boundaries and defects - critical factors that govern material performance.

On 6 December 2024, eight doctoral students and postdocs followed an invitation by the Competence Center for Materials and Processes (MaP) Doctoral School Small track on an excursion to Basel. They were curious about the new ETH D-BSSE building and the research of two of the MaP research groups located there.

Research team led by the Laboratory for Soft Materials and Interfaces have created microcapsule arrays that can simultaneously record the different history of stress levels by changing color. This technology enables monitoring microscale damage and pressure in materials.

The Golden Owl honours lecturers who have provided exceptional teaching and motivates them to continue with their excellent teaching.

The MaP Doctoral School hosted its 2024 onboarding event at the Dozentenfoyer last Tuesday, 12 November. Around 60 doctoral students gathered to connect, exchange ideas, and enjoy Zurich’s iconic views over the city and lake. This year’s event focused entirely on building connections — true to the school's motto: “Connecting doctoral students.”

The Dandelion Award is the first award to recognize professors for their outstanding efforts to promote entrepreneurship at ETH Zurich and beyond.

Researchers at the Laboratory for Nanometallurgy have developed a new fabrication method for non-primitive metasurfaces. Thereby the colors of these metasurfaces represent and visualizes light-matter interactions.

Where is generative AI already proving its worth in teaching and what are its limits? Will avatars soon replace lecturers? In this interview, Jan Vermant, Vice Rector for Curriculum Development, talks about trends at ETH and his own experiences.

Materials researchers have created a new composite material that combines two incompatible properties: stiff yet with a high damping capacity.

The MaP ALIVE Symposium, held from 12-13 September 2024 at ETH Zurich, was a resounding success, with over hundred attendees coming together to hear about advancements in engineering with living materials.

Carla Fernandez-Rico has been awarded the SNSF Group Leader Ambizione Fellowship to start her independent research within the Complex Materials' group.

We are delighted to invite you for the inaugural lecture of Prof. Hedan Bai, who will share with us some of the research her team has initiated in the newly established Robotic Materials group at Department of Materials.

Each year outstanding doctoral theses are honored with the Silver Medal of ETH Zurich. This year’s awardees that were supervised by a D-MATL faculty member received their medal at the last doctoral awards ceremony on July 12, 2024.

ETH researchers have modified certain bacteria with UV light so that they produce more cellulose. The basis for this is a new approach with which the researchers generate thousands of bacterial variants and select those that have developed into the most productive.

This well deserved honour recognises Nicola Spaldin's pioneering research on multiferroics. The Honorary Doctorates has been conferred at a special ceremony on June 25th at the Queen's University Belfast.

Using a special wafer-thin gold membrane, ETH researchers have made it significantly easier to study surfaces. The membrane makes it possible to measure properties of surfaces that are inaccessible to conventional methods.

On 20 June 2024, the 19th edition of the MaP Graduate Symposium & MaP Award Final was held at ETH Zentrum. This annual event showcased the innovative research of doctoral students across various departments, fostering a vibrant exchange of ideas and collaboration.

Dr Thaylan Pinheiro Araújo has been awarded the MaP Award 2024 for his exceptional doctoral thesis on "Design of Promoted Reducible Oxide Catalysts for Green Methanol Synthesis".

Researchers at ETH Zurich have shown that quantum states of single electron spins can be controlled by currents of electrons whose spins are evenly aligned. In the future, this method could be used in electronic circuit elements.

Hedan Bai thinks robots should help people and be compostable. She is working on creating robots made of soft materials that can do both.

Athina Anastasaki, Head of Polymeric Materials, receives the 2024 Journal of Polymer Science Innovation Award which recognizes significant research innovation and achievement in a polymer scientist under 40.

Congratulations to Alberto for winning the prize for his poster "solid_dmft: Grey-​boxing the description of strongly correlated materials" on the occasion of the 20-​years-of Nanosience celebration.

Although realized by few, total solar eclipses are one of the most unusual events that nature has to offer. An impression from the Laboratory for Multifunctional Ferroic Materials.

Each year the world's largest association in magnetism – the Division of Magnetism of the German Physical Society (DPG) awards the INNOMAG Prize for the best dissertation. This year it goes deep into the quantum world where magnetism competes with other correlated states.

At its meeting of 6 and 7 March 2024 and upon application of Joël Mesot, President of ETH Zurich, the ETH Board appointed nine professors. The Board also awarded the title of "Professor" three times and the title of "Professor of Practice" once.

Light is an effective tool to probe the polarization and domain distribution in ferroelectric materials non-invasively. With the emergence of oxide electronics, there is now a strong demand to expand the role of light toward active control of the polarization. A research team led by Prof. Trassin and Prof. Fiebig at the ETH Zurich in the DMATL demonstrated the optical control of the ferroelectric polarization in prototypical epitaxial heterostructures.

Athina Anastasaki, Head of Polymeric Materials, receives the 2024 Macromolecular Rapid Communications Junior Researcher Award in the fields of chemistry, physics and application of polymer systems.

The Laboratory of Polymeric Materials presents a new method of initiating and accelerating radical polymerizations.

Professor Jos Malda from the University Medical Center Utrecht and University Utrecht held a lecture at ETH Zentrum last Wednesday, 15 February 2024. About 40 people turned up to hear him talk about “Biofabrication Technologies for Osteochondral Regeneration”. MERCK sponsored the event.

On 1 February 2024, MaP Doctoral School invited its doctoral students on a guided tour through the Zentrum campus facilities of the Student Project House (SPH).

We completed the fourth edition of the workshop Ethics and Scientific Integrity (Part 2) on 12 and 19 January 2024, with 35 participants from MaP Doctoral School. In a peer-​learning format, different approaches to problem-​solving in regards of ethics and scientific integrity were identified and trained, among others, through a role-​play.

Impressions from the MaP Doctoral School Onboarding Event now in motion pictures. Please enjoy!

MaP Doctoral School invited doctoral students affiliated with the Competence Center for Materials and Processes (MaP) to its annual Onboarding Event. After presentations by the school’s track chairs, the attendees networked over snacks and drinks and then headed over to Audi Max for a concert by ManSound, an a cappella group from Ukraine.

Athina Anastasaki, Head of Polymeric Materials, receives the 2024 Werner Prize for outstanding research in the field of chemistry.

Prof. Neil Lin, coming all the way from UCLA to ETH Zurich, contributed a special talk to the Mechanobiology Seminar Series on 6 December 2023.

Athina Anastasaki, Head of the Laboratory of Polymeric Materials, received the EuChemS Lecture Award in recognition of her major achievements, and her outsanding research profile on the field of polymer chemistry.

Modelled on nature: researchers have developed a new material that replicates the structure responsible for the blue feathers of the North American song bird, among many other birds. It also has other striking advantages.

Frans Spaepen was bestowed with an honorary doctorate at the ETH Day in 2020. Because this celebration only occurred online during the Corona pandemic, we now have organized a one-day symposium to celebrate the event. The symposium will end with the Staudinger-Durrer Lecture, presented by Prof. Spaepen, and his honoring with the Staudinger-Durrer Prize by the rector of ETH Zurich, Prof. Günther Dissertori.

Last Wednesday afternoon, Prof. Safa Jamali from Northeastern University (USA) talked about micro- and meso-mechanics of dense suspensions under flow.

Dr. Sara Morgenthaler, study coordnator and lecturer, wins the Golden Owl 2023 awarded by VSETH, for excellent teaching. Congratulations!

Using a new 3D printing technique, researchers at ETH Zurich have developed special ceramic structures for a solar reactor. Initial experimental testing show that these structures can boost the production yield of solar fuels.

Prof. Robert S. Langer (MIT) gave an online lecture about his research journey – from “this approach will not work” to becoming one of the world's most recognised scientists. The lecture was organised by MaP and hosted by Prof. Mark Tibbitt (D-MAVT).

Carla Fernandez-Rico, an ETH Postdoctoral Fellow in the group of Soft and Living Materials, and Complex Materials, has been selected among six other talented scientists, as the 2023 winner of the Women Interactive Materials Award.

Safe the Date: The Department of Materials invites you to the inaugural lectures by Prof. Arkadiy Simonov, Prof. Tanja Zimmermann and Prof. Tae-Lim Choi

After the Corona pandemic, people at LMPT finally had the opportunity to present their accumulated results at international conferences over the Summer and Fall 2023. The results were well received by the international community.

The Laboratory of Polymeric Materials presents the photocatalytic depolymerization of polymers synthesized by ATRP.

Doctoral students presenting and discussing their ideas and research in an informal setting over lunch - that's the idea behind 'MaP Minds & Munchies'. The first edition of the new event series took place on Wednesday, 11 October 2023 at ETH Hönggerberg.

Young scientists from all over the world got together in Corsica to learn about emerging topics in the field of oxide electronics. The summer school was sponsored by MaP Doctoral School.

Researchers from the Laboratory for Nanometallurgy developed an approach that utilizes two self-assembly processes in series to build an optical metamaterial with two distinct functional components: a disordered network and spherical nanoparticles.

Prof. em. ETH Dr. Nicholas D. Spencer and Prof. Antonella Rossi (University of Cagliari, I) have both won the Tribochemistry Award of the Japanese Society of Tribologists (JAST). The awardees are renowned for their research in tribochemistry over a period spanning three decades. The researchers collaborated at the Laboratory for Surface Science and Technology in the Department of Materials, ETH Zurich.

Material surfaces encompass structural and chemical discontinuities that often lead to the loss of the property of interest in so-called dead layers. It is problematic in nanoscale oxide electronics, as it results in a thickness threshold required for the emergence of the materials functionality. An international team, led by Professors M. Trassin and M. Fiebig at D-MATL, reports a groundbreaking achievement: the stabilization of ultrathin ferroelectricity, right from the very first unit cell.

Prof. Aurélien Roux from Geneva University crossed the Röstigraben to wow his audience with fascinating videos of cellular tornadoes and a hydra re-growing back its heads.

25 ALIVE CLiMa stream members met last Tuesday to bring each other up to date on work status and to receive input on open problems.

The MaP Doctoral School was present at the Orientation Event organised by the ETH Zurich Doctoral Administration on September 12, 2023. The aim of the event is to introduce doctoral students to structures and objectives of ETH Zurich, whilst offering an overview of the main services provided by ETH.  

The ETH Industry Day 2023 took place on September 6, 2023, on ETH Campus Hönggerberg. The ETH Competence Center for Materials and Processes (MaP) was present with a booth presenting our further education programme ETH Sabbatical | CAS Advanced Materials and Processes.

The laureate of the 2023 Lise Meitner Award is Professor Nicola Spaldin, who is awarded for “Fundamental theoretical contributions and discoveries in the field of multiferroics”.

17 postdocs met over lunch to listen to three presentations by fellow researchers. Minghan Hu (D-MAVT, formerly D-MATL), Tanner Jankins (D-CHAB), and Alexander Henkes (D-MAVT) detailed their experiences on successfully winning a postdoc fellowship.

The Laboratory of Polymeric Materials presents the bulk depolymerization of polymers synthesized by either ATRP or RAFT polymerization.

Are you a technical expert from industry interested in further educating yourself in the field of advanced materials, process and manufacturing technologies? Come meet us at the ETH Industry Day 2023 and learn about our customised training programme for industry experts.

ETH Zurich mourns the death of materials scientist Ueli W. Suter, ETH Professor Emeritus and former Vice President Research. A personal obituary by his long-time colleague Nicholas Spencer, Professor Emeritus of Surface Science and Technology.

We completed the third edition of the workshop Ethics and Scientific Integrity (Part 2) on 30 Juni 2023, with 19 participants from D-MATL, D-MAVT, D-HEST and D-BAUG. In a peer-​learning format, different approaches to problem-​solving in regards of ethics and scientific integrity were identified and trained, among others, through a role-​play.

Christopher Dreimol (D-BAUG) was elected as student representative in the Executive Committee of the MaP Doctoral School on the occasion of the MaP Graduate Symposium. He is succeeding Zazo Meijs (D-MATL) in this function.

The 18th edition of the MaP Graduate Symposium took place on 22 June 2023 at ETH Zentrum. The Department of Materials was again very successfully represented this year. It is therefore not surprising that several of the awards were given to members of the D-​MATL.

Last Thursday, 22 June 2023, the 18th gathering of ETH Zurich's Materials and Processes community was held at the Zentrum campus. The event featured talks, posters, and networking opportunities. Over 180 people attended.

From 7 to 9 June 2023, the 6th edition of the ETH Raman Workshop took place at ETH Hönggerberg. The workshop featured talks by renowned Raman scientists, instrument demonstrations, young investigator pitches, and a small poster exhibition.

Four invited finalists presented their research at the MaP Graduate Symposium to determine the most promising thesis of 2022 in Materials and Processes at ETH Zurich. A jury of academic and industry representatives awarded the prestigious prize to Dr. Riccardo Rizzo of D-HEST.

The first edition of the ALIVE Open Science Day was held on Monday, June 19, 2023. The ALIVE fellows, professors and collaborators met for a morning of research, exchange and networking.

On 8 June 2023, the 2nd Material Strength & Durability Symposium took place in the Alumni Pavillon at ETH Zentrum. Over 60 participants followed talks by top-class speakers and five doctoral students pitching their research.

Pulmonary surfactant is a special fluid released by cells in the lungs. For premature babies and COVID-19 patients in intensive care, it can mean the difference between life and death. An ETH materials scientist hopes to shed some light on this complex substance.

Athina Anastasaki, Head of the Laboratory of Polymeric Materials, has been selected as one of the Chemical & Engineering News Talented 12, which recognizes young rising stars in chemistry who are not afraid of taking risk in the early stages of their career.

At its meeting of 24 and 25 May 2023 and upon application of Joël Mesot, President of ETH Zurich, the ETH Board appointed Dr Hedan Bai (*1993), currently Postdoctoral Researcher at Northwestern University, Illinois, USA, as Tenure Track Assistant Professor of Robotic Materials in the Department of Materials.

At its meeting of 24 and 25 May 2023 and upon application of Joël Mesot, President of ETH Zurich, the ETH Board appointed nine professors and awarded the title of professor twice. At the same time, the Board also bid farewell to nine professors and thanked them for their service.

Laura Heyderman, who leads the Mesoscopic Systems Group at PSI and ETH Zurich, has been elected Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS). Her nomination recognises almost 30 years of research into magnetic materials and magnetism on the nanoscale, most notably, in the field of artificial spin ice.

A jury of experts from academia and industry nominated four candidates for the MaP Award Final, taking place on 22 June 2023 during the MaP Graduate Symposium.

Athina Anastasaki, Head of the Laboratory of Polymeric Materials, wins the 2023 ACS Macroletters/Biomacromolecules/Macromolecules Young Investigator Award which seeks to recognize two individuals, early in their careers (under 40), who have had a major impact on the field of polymer science.

This year, the expert jury immediately reached a unanimous decision: from among the five inventions nominated for the Spark Award 2023, the whole panel chose the novel corrosion protection developed by researchers from the Laboratory for Multifunctional Materials.

More effective, reusable and self-repairing: a new kind of corrosion protection developed by the ETH researchers Marco D'Elia, Walter Caseri und Markus Niederberger has been honoured with ETH Zurich’s Spark Award 2023. The innovation offers excellent market potential and could significantly slow down the deterioration of buildings and vehicles.

We completed the second edition of the workshop Ethics and Scientific Integrity (Part 2) on 24 March 2023, with 15 participants from D-MATL, D-MAVT and D-HEST. In this one-day programme, doctoral students were guided to recognise and analyse ethically-relevant situations in their scientific research.

Dr. Hossein Rezai from Singapore gave a talk on 'Of Systems, Complexity and Regeneration' at ETH Hönggerberg on 13 March 2023. The seminar was organised by the Green Team of the PhD and Postdoc Association at PSI and supported by MaP Doctoral School.

After three intensive course blocks between October and December 2022, the course 'Advanced Machine Learning Techniques applied to Microscopy Data Analysis' of the MaP Doctoral School Soft Track concluded on 17 March 2023 with students presenting their own machine learning projects.

About twenty doctoral students and scientists interested in the magnetism of nano- and microwires signed up for a talk by Prof. em. Manuel Vázquez of the Spanish Council for Research (CSIC).

Researchers at ETH Zurich, Empa and EPFL are developing a 3D-printed insole with integrated sensors that allows the pressure of the sole to be measured in the shoe and thus during any activity. This helps athletes or patients to determine performance and therapy progress.

At its meeting of 8 and 9 March and upon application of Joël Mesot, President of ETH Zurich, the ETH Board appointed 14 professors and awarded the title of professor five times. At the same time, the Board also bid farewell to three professors and thanked them for their service.

Mechanobiology enthusiasts, please take note that from March on, the Mechanobiology Seminar Series events will take place at ETH Hönggerberg (HCI J 498). Sign up now to receive info on the details of the next seminar(s).

ETH Zurich researchers have developed an extraordinary protection against corrosion after a chance discovery. It glows in places where it is not damaged, repairs itself – and can be reused multiple times.

From 13 to 17 February 2023, eight MaP Doctoral Students and two post-docs delved into 'Corrosion and Assisted Cracking, and Their Mitigation: Fundamentals and Advances', a course taught by Prof. Raman Singh, currently visiting from Monash University.

Finally again – a Master’s degree graduation ceremony without special restrictions. It was wonderful to see the smiles of our 37 graduates and celebrate together with their families and friends!

Last weekend, over 40 MaP doctoral students travelled to Graubünden. After an intense day of thinking through options and setting goals to plan their careers, they played in the snow and networked across departments.

The Laboratory of Polymeric Materials reports an unsual Atom Tranfer Radical Polymerization whereby oxygen favors the polymerization by forming superoxido species at room temperature.

Thomas Weber, the head of the X-ray platform at D-MATL, receives the Will-Kleber Commemorative Coin from the German Society for Crystallography.

In their latest work, Maxence Menétrey and co-workers from the Laboratory for Nanometallurgy present a novel approach for microstructure control in nanopillars synthesized by electrohydrodynamic redox 3D printing. Their Christmas-inspired picture was featured on the cover of the Christmas issue of Small.

MaP Competence Center for Materials and Processes and MaP Doctoral School wish you a very happy and healthy New Year and success for all your scientific endeavours!

The Green Team of the PhD and Postdoc Association at PSI are launching a new seminar series dedicated to the climate and the environment: the Climate Seminar Series.

Almost 50 doctoral students, who had signed up for the MaP Winter Retreat on 'Time and Career Management for Scientist', attended the online kick-off workshop with trainer Dr. Karin Bodewits from NaturalScience.Careers.

On Tuesday, 13 December 2022, the third installment of the Mechanobiology Seminar Series was held at ETH Zentrum. Dunja Al-Nuaimi (Experimental Continuum Mechanics, D-MAVT) and Rodi Odabasi (Laboratory for Fetal Healing and Tissue Engineering, USZ) talked about endothelial cells and networks.

About 50 participants took part in the first in-person event of the 'Sustainable & Bioinspired Seminar Series' last Friday and listened to Prof. Fratzl’s ‘Thoughts on Bioinspired Materials and Sustainability’.

MaP Doctoral School welcomed doctoral students from groups affiliated with the Competence Center for Materials and Processes (MaP) to its 'Doctoral Students Onboarding Event'.

Manfred Fiebig and his group visualize ferroic states with the help of non-linear laser optics. Now the physicist and materials scientist is being honoured with the Stern-Gerlach Medal of the German Physical Society, their highest distinction in Experimental Physics.

The MaP Doctoral School | Advanced Manufacturing thematic track offered a new workshop on 'Scientific Storytelling', curated by Marco Zbinden of Future Now Consultants.

On the current list of Highly Cited Researchers, 21 have a connection to ETH Zurich. Four of these appear on the list for the first time.

About 50 participants took part in the launch event of the 'Sustainable & Bioinspired Seminar Series' last Friday and listened to a fascinating presentation on 4D printing by Prof. Eva Blasco of Heidelberg University.

Researchers in the Laboratory for Soft Materials and Interfaces show a new atomic force microscopy method to image the full 3D shape of soft particles adsorbed at fluid interfaces.

After course session no. 2 has come to an end, we have asked participant Carolina van Baalen (Soft Materials and Interfaces, D-MATL) to answer a few questions.

Scientific Skills Speed Dating Competition: Nensi Toncich and Konrad Papis continue their collaboration over a dinner at 'Clouds'.

The course 'Advanced Machine Learning Techniques applied to Microscopy Data Analysis' of the MaP Doctoral School Soft Track taught by Prof. Giovanni Volpe from University of Gothenburg (Sweden) started on 5 October with an intensive first course session.

Prof. Matthew Webber from University of Notre Dame held a seminar on 'Bio-Inspired Soft Materials through Dynamic Supramolecular Motifs'.

On 11 October 2022, the novel student-​led Mechanobiology Seminar Series, organised by MaP Doctoral School and Dr. Céline Labouesse of Prof. Tibbitt's Macromolecular Engineering Laboratory, started out with its first seminar under the title 'Role of physical confinement in cell signaling & cell function'.

Materials scientists Nicole Kleger and Simona Fehlmann have developed a 3D printing process for creating salt templates that they can fill with other materials. One area of application is the creation of highly porous lightweight metal components. The two Pioneer Fellows are now trying to transfer this process to industry.

Best Paper Prize 2022 - Martin Kröger (Computational Polymer Physics) receives award from the Journal of Physics A - Mathematical and Theoretical.

Researchers from the Laboratory for Multifunctional Ferroic Materials at the ETH Zurich, in Japan and in France have translated a domain pattern, a block of information, between magnetization and electric-polarization space. This quasi-instantaneous and reversible process is a transfer and not a mere duplication as it erases the information in the source state.

“Softies” labtour no. 2 took place in the «pd|z Product Development Group Zurich» labs of Prof. Mirko Meboldt’s research group.

The 16th edition of the MaP Graduate Symposium took place on September 1st, 2022. The D-​MATL was again successfully represented this year, with several high-​​class talks and poster presentations. Many of the awards went to members of D-​MATL.

Zazo Meijs of D-MATL was elected as new doctoral student representative in the Executive Committee of the MaP Doctoral School during the 17^th MaP Graduate Symposium.  

Our sincere congratulations go to Dr. Alexandre Anthis for winning the MaP Award 2022! The prize recognises his impressive doctoral thesis on 'Design & Formulation of Stimuli-​Responsive Surgical Materials'.

About 200 participants from the Materials & Processes community followed the invitation to the 17^th MaP Graduate Symposium on 1 September 2022, making the annual event a social highlight in the MaP calendar.

Nensi Toncich from D-MATL and Konrad Papis from D-MAVT win the competition with their picture "2D meeting to discuss 2D ideas", showing their ongoing collaboration following the "Scientific Skills Speed Dating".

Dr. Sayantika Bhowal, postdoctoral researcher at the ETH Materials Theory group (D-​MATL), has been selected as one of the winners for the IXS2022 Early Career Scientist Awards. 

On 13 July 2022, the "Soft Materials Track" co-chaired by Lucio Isa & Athina Anastasaki held its first Softies Labtour.

On 18 July 2022, the "Sustainable & Bioinspired Materials Track" co-chaired by André Studart & Ingo Burgert travelled to the University of Freiburg in Germany. They met with scientists from the Cluster of Excellence: Living, Adaptive and Energy-autonomous Materials Systems (livMatS).

The MaP Doctoral School welcomes ideas for transdisciplinary formats, aimed to prepare graduates to drive future transformations in the way Materials and Processes shape the world. The winning idea receives 25'000 CHF and organisational support from the MaP Doctoral School Office for its realisation. Application deadline is 17 August 2022.

Nicholas Spencer (Emeritus Prof. of Surface Science and Technology, D-MATL) has been elected President of the International Tribology Council (ITC). The ITC’s objectives are to enable contact and communication between tribology societies worldwide, as well as encouraging the formation of new national tribology societies.

Some forty students of MaP’s Doctoral School met on 30 June 2022 at Kraftwerk in Zurich’s city centre for an evening of scientific networking with like-minded people.

The conference on “First-principles Modelling of Defects in Solids”, supported by the MaP Doctoral School | Science and Technology of the Small thematic track, took place 13-15 June 2022 at ETH Zentrum.

Nicola Spaldin, Professor of Materials Theory at the Department of Materials at ETH Zurich is pioneering the development of a new class of materials known as multiferroics. These could facilitate ground-breaking microelectronics applications, such as the building of ultra-fast data repositories or supersensitive sensors.

The farwell lecture of Prof. Dr. Nicholas Spencer, "Modifying Materials" is now available online on the ETH Video Portal.

The Venture Awards for Swiss start-ups were presented yesterday evening for the 25th time. In addition to the three certified ETH spin-offs DeepJudge, Kaspar& and Versics, the 15 winners included five other start-ups founded by ETH students and alumni.

On Sunday 19.06.2022, Lucio Isa, D-MATL Professor for Soft Materials and Interfaces (SMI) completed his first 70.3 Ironman race in Rapperswil (5:37:29) carrying his group with him from start to finish (well, a 3D-printed version of the SMI logo, to be more precise!). He wholeheartedly thanks neoprene, carbon fibers and ice, three of his favorite materials, for the support during the race.

Colours can be created in surprisingly different ways. And in addition to being pleasing to the eye, colour can also serve a useful purpose.

The 2022 EPS Condensed Matter Division (CMD) Europhysics Prize has been awarded to Prof. Agnès Barthélémy and Dr. Manuel Bibes (CNRS/Thales laboratory of University Paris-Saclay), Prof. Ramamoorthy Ramesh (UC Berkeley) and Prof. Nicola Spaldin (ETH Zurich) for seminal contributions to the physics and applications of multiferroic and magnetoelectric materials.

Ferroelectric materials have found widespread use in everyday technology mainly owing to their electric polarization that can be switched between two distinct states. Overcoming the binary limit of ferroelectrics in order to achieve any arbitrary value of the polarization has been a long-standing challenge, but has the potential to vastly expand the scope of ferroelectric applications, for instance towards neuromorphic computing.

At its meeting of 18 and 19 May and upon application of Joël Mesot, President of ETH Zurich, the ETH Board appointed two professors and awarded the title of professor once for our department.

In a recent article, researchers from the Laboratory of Polymeric Materials were able to reverse reversible addition–fragmentation chain-transfer (RAFT) polymerization and regenerate the starting monomer which they can then use to either retrieve the initial polymer or produce a completely different material.

On 19-20 May 2022, the "Strength & Durability Track" co-chaired by Laura De Lorenzis & David Kammer successfully held its Material Strength & Durability Symposium.

Professor Athina Anastasaki, head of the laboratory of polymeric materials, wins the 2022 Young Investigator PMSE Award (by the ACS) which seeks to recognize those early career scientists who have had a significant impact on the field of polymer science and engineering.

Researchers at PSI and ETH Zurich have observed for the first time how tiny magnets in a special layout align themselves solely as a result of temperature changes. This view into processes that take place within so-​called artificial spin ice could play an important role in the development of novel high-​performance computers.

Researchers at PSI and ETH Zurich have observed for the first time how tiny magnets in a special layout align themselves solely as a result of temperature changes. This view into processes that take place within so-called artificial spin ice could play an important role in the development of novel high-performance computers.

ETH Pioneer Fellow Martin Hofmann has developed a method to produce high-quality plant-based meat alternatives. His research on the flow properties of soft materials enables him to imitate the marbling of real steaks.  

In a recent article published in Nature Physics, researchers from the Soft and Living Materials group uncover how stress granules interact with the cytoskeleton inside the cell.  

A team of ETH researchers led by Athina Anastasaki have succeeded in breaking down plastic into its molecular building blocks and in recovering over 90 percent of them. A first step towards genuine plastic recycling.  

In a recent Advanced Materials publication, researchers at the Complex Materials group developed architectured composites that display striking color changes when stretched in selective directions under ambient light with minimum power input.

In a recent Nature Communications publication, researchers at the Laboratory of Metal Physics and Technology unravel via multiple length-scale analysis the Invar effect, universally observed in magnetic Fe-based glasses. On the atomic scale it strongly affects the average Fe–Fe pair distance and can even cause thermal contraction of the Fe–Fe pairs.

The STLE International Award is the highest technical honor of the Society of Tribologists and Lubrication Engineers (USA) and bestows lifetime honorary membership on the recipient. It is given in recognition of the recipient's outstanding contributions in tribology, lubrication engineering or allied fields. The award will be presented at the STLE Annual Meeting in Orlando, Florida in May.

On the occasion of The Big Bang, the premiere event of the MaP Doctoral School, a video team portrayed three of our doctoral students. Find out how they realise impact in science and society and what they enjoy most during their doctoral studies at ETH Zurich.

The Master’s degree graduation ceremony 2022 in Materials took place on January 14, 2022. It was great to celebrate the graduates together with a limited number of guests in person at ETH Zürich.

We are saddened to learn of the untimely death of Prof. Erich Wintermantel, former Chair of Biocompatible Materials Science and Engineering in our Department. Erich was responsible for the very first steps of D-MATL in the direction of biomaterials—a field that has subsequently become central to the research of many Departmental groups, and which still plays an important part in our current Bachelor’s and Master’s curricula.

Through its new doctoral programme, the MaP Doctoral School, ETH Zurich plans to train specialists in materials and processes who will work across disciplines to tackle the big challenges of our time, such as climate change, sustainable development and personalised medicine.

Researchers from the Laboratory of Nanometallurgy developed a scalable design route and low-footprint strategy for the production of large-area, frequency-selective Cu-Sn disordered network metamaterials with quasi-perfect absorption. The Research is now published and featured on the supplementary cover of Nano Letters.

The Laboratory of Polymeric Materials, in collaboration with the Laboratory of Food and Soft Materials, have discovered that the addition of a small organic molecule (transformer) can induce the metamorphosis of the nanoparticle without altering the chemical structure of the constituent polymers. Our work was highlighted as a very important paper (VIP) by the reviewers of Angewandte Chemie.

The French Academy of Sciences have elected 16 new foreign associates. The foreign associates contribute to the international reputation of the Academy and their number cannot go beyond 150.

Researchers at Complex Materials and at the Laboratory of Biosensors and Bioelectronics (D-ITET) have developed stretchable electronics containing multilayers of oriented nanowires. This is useful for strain sensing applications in soft robotics, wearable electronics and E-skins.

On the occasion of The Big Bang, the premiere event of the MaP Doctoral School, a video team portrayed three of our doctoral students. Find out how they realise impact in science and society and what they enjoy most during their doctoral studies at ETH Zurich.

In the course of 2021, the launch year of the MaP Doctoral School, over 128 doctoral students from 43 ETH research groups of 7 departments have already signed up.

At its meeting of 8 and 9 December 2021 and upon application of Joël Mesot, President of ETH Zurich, the ETH Board appointed Professor Tae-​​Lim Choi (*1977), currently Full Professor at Seoul National University, South Korea, as Full Professor of Polymer Chemistry in the Department of Materials.

At its meeting of 8 and 9 December 2021 and upon application of Joël Mesot, President of ETH Zurich, the ETH Board appointed Dr Rolf Erni (*1974), currently Lecturer in the Department of Materials at ETH Zurich and Head of the Electron Microscopy Center at Empa, as Adjunct Professor at ETH Zurich.

The group of Polymeric Materials has developed a simple way to regulate both dispersity and sequence in highly complex multiblock copolymers and the results have been published in Nature Chemistry.

Researchers at ETH Zurich have developed a new photocatalyst made from an aerogel that could enable more efficient hydrogen production. The key is sophisticated pretreatment of the material.

Professor Athina Anastasaki, head of the laboratory of polymeric materials, wins the Golden Owl 2021 awarded by VSETH, for excellent teaching. Congratulations!

On 22 November 2021, the MaP Doctoral School received its premiere event, onsite and in-person.

Claudia Sigel was awarded for her idea of a platform on which technical and administrative staff could offer each other internal continuing education courses.

World’s most highly cited scientists list includes 17 from ETH Zurich. Many of whom conduct cross-disciplinary research.

On 5 November, Manfred Fiebig became a corresponding member of the "Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur Mainz". The academy is an interregionally oriented association of personalities from the fields of science, literature and music. It is a place of dialogue that focuses on interdisciplinary exchange.

Prof. Xu has made important contributions to the field of flexible electronics.  Most recently, he invented a wearable ultrasonic technology that allows noninvasive monitoring of tissue far below the skin surface. He also developed new growth methods for materials used in flexible high-performance electronics.

The Materials Theory group is very pleased to announce that Veronica Michel receives this award for her Master's thesis "Interplay between Ferroelectricity and Metallicity in BaTiO₃".

In their latest paper published on Nature Communications, researchers from the Soft and Living Materials group and their collaborators design a protein droplet system that is as active and as concentrated as the cytoplasm. 

Collaboration between talented members of multidisciplinary teams provides the best foundation for innovative, useful and trustworthy applications of artificial intelligence. This approach has been demonstrated at a joint event by ETH Entrepreneur Club and the ETH AI Center.

A collaboration between researchers at the ETH Zurich Laboratory of Metal Physics and Technology and Empa has shown that Pd-based metallic glass demonstrates thrombogenic resistance that is substantially higher than that of state-of-the-art Ti64. With its superior mechanical properties, the Pd-based glass is particularly interesting for blood-contacting, load-bearing medical devices. The results are presented in Advanced Functional Materials.

The group of Polymeric Materials, in collaboration with the group of Soft and Living Materials, have developed a low-energy nanoemulsion method to produce nanoparticles with various morphologies.

Manfred Fiebig received the prize for pioneering nonlinear optical spectroscopy studies that led to a fundamental understanding of the emergence and coupling of electric and magnetic orders at the level of domains and domain walls. The prize will be awarded at the 2022 March Meeting of the American Physical Society in Chicago.

In the latest work published on Small, researchers from the Soft and Living Materials group, inspired by living organisms, demonstrate a simple method to dramatically increase the refractive index of commercial polymers. 

Professor Athina Anastasaki, head of the laboratory of Polymeric Materials, has been appointed as an Associate Editor for Polymer Chemistry, a Royal Society of Chemistry Journal.

We welcome applications to complete a doctoral training in Advanced Engineering with Living Materials (ALIVE) as part of the MaP Doctoral School. We offer up to 20 full-​time doctoral researcher positions to start early 2022.

Materials have such a profound impact on humanity that we name entire historical ages after them.

Quantum physics opens our eyes to the holistic nature of reality. Nothing can be observed in isolation – and everything is governed by chance.

Right on time with the start of the fall semester, we are publishing course recommendations, sorted per thematic track and overarching topics.

Soft magnetic carpets, created at Complex Materials lab, can transport heavy objects and liquids amphibiously, like cilia, and sort this cargo by size and shape.

Dr. Alexandra Bayles, ETH fellow in the group of Soft Materials, was awarded the ECIS-Polymers Award for young scientist to acknowledge top level scientific activity of young researchers in the field of polymer physics, chemistry, or technology.

The Colloid & Interface Science Award, sponsored by Solvay, is granted to a European scientist for original scientific work of outstanding quality, described in one or several publications, patents or other documents made public in the previous five years.

ETH Zurich researchers have developed a new type of laminate that changes colour as soon as the material is deformed. This way, the materials researchers can kill two birds with one stone: a lightweight composite material that inspects itself.

The group of Prof. Lucio Isa has pioneered the fabrication of reconfigurable artificial microswimmers incorporating soft thermoresponsive polymers. The particles, powered by AC electric fields, use light-induced temperature differences to change shape and dielectric properties, in order to adapt their propulsion. The work was possible thanks to a collaboration with D-MATL’s Prof. Martin Kröger and with the group of Prof. Angel Alegria CFM (Spain) via the EUSMI network.

Because of the Covid pandemic the Master’s degree graduation ceremony 2020 at D-MATL was postponed until June 2021, hoping that it would be possible to organize a ceremony in person rather than remotely. Unfortunately, it wasn’t yet possible to invite any guests, but the graduates were received at ETH Zürich for the ceremony.

Athina Anastasaki joined ETH Zurich in 2019. Her research focuses on the next generation of polymers and recycling processes for these. She wants to recover all the starting materials and use them to produce new materials for other applications.

The 16th edition of the MaP Graduate Symposium took place on 14 & 15 June 2021. The D-​MATL was again successfully represented this year, with several high-​class talks and poster presentations. Many of the awards went to members of D-​MATL.

Our sincere congratulations go to Dr. Tino Matter for winning the MaP Award 2021! The prize recognises his impressive doctoral thesis on 'Uniting Bioactivities in Hybrid Nanosystems for Wound Healing'.

We are excited to announce the official launch of the MaP Doctoral School. The sign up for current doctoral students starts at today’s MaP Graduate Symposium on 14 June 2021.

We are excited to announce the official launch of the MaP Doctoral School. The sign up for current doctoral students starts at today’s MaP Graduate Symposium on 14 June 2021.

Chiara Gattinoni, a materials theorist and Marie Curie Fellow at ETH Zurich, uses the “Piz Daint” supercomputer at CSCS to investigate a special class of materials: ferroelectrics. In the future, these materials could constitute the heart of low-energy-consuming, miniaturised data storage in electrical devices. One ferroelectric Gattinoni analysed is, according to her, truly magical.

Chiara Gattinoni, a materials theorist and Marie Curie Fellow at ETH Zurich, uses the “Piz Daint” supercomputer at CSCS to investigate a special class of materials: ferroelectrics. In the future, these materials could constitute the heart of low-​energy-consuming, miniaturised data storage in electrical devices. One ferroelectric Gattinoni analysed is, according to her, truly magical.

In their latest work published on Soft Matter, researchers from the Soft and Living Materials group have shown how to produce synthetic structural color in one step thanks to phase-​separation in the solid state.

Can Onur Avci, Institute of Materials Science of Barcelona, Spain, receives the Prize for outstanding contributions to understand current-induced spin-orbit torques and electrical control of the magnetization in magnetic insulators, and for the discovery of unidirectional spin Hall magnetoresistance.