2022

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.

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.

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.

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.

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. 

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.  

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.