Nano-afternoon 2023

This year, Nano Area of ​​Advance organizes a Nano afternoon. Here you will have the opportunity to listen to an inspiring seminar by Professor Vahid Sandoghdar (director and scientific member of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light).  You will also be able to listen to the seminar series Small talk [about Nanoscience], this time with Jonatan Holmér, PhD student in Nano- and biophysics. There will also be an information meeting.

Take the chance to mingle with other people from the Nano area in a poster session and dinner. We encourage everyone (not just PhD students and postdocs) to bring a poster to present. 

Program

15.00 SmallTalk [about Nanoscience] with coffee
Jonatan Holmér, Doctoral student in Nano- and biophysics.
Elastic strain engineering in semiconductor nanowires and 2D materials

Abstract:
Semiconductor nanowires and 2D-materials have unique physical properties that may be useful in many applications such as solar cells, transistors and photodetectors. Specifically, they are much more elastic than bulk samples of the same type of material, which means they can withstand high levels of strain before they break or get deformed. This high elastic strain may be used to change the properties of the nanowires or 2D-materials, such as their bandgap energy or resistance, and this approach is generally termed elastic strain engineering. In this work, we use in situ electron microscopy techniques to study the effect of strain in GaAs nanowires and MoS2 2D flakes.

16.00 Information meeting

17.00 Seminar with Professor Vahid Sandoghdar, director of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light.
Cryogenic fluorescence microscopy at angstrom resolution & Fluorescence-free studies of proteins and cellular nanostructures

Abstract:
Fluorescence microscopy has been the workhorse of biological microscopy in the last half a
century, also leading to super-resolution microscopy. In the first part of this presentation, I
will discuss the application of cryogenic fluorescence microscopy for improving the
photophysics of fluorophores, thus, allowing us to reach three-dimensional angstrom
resolution in resolving several sites of a single protein or protein complex.
Fundamental limitations of fluorescence image have motivated many groups to develop
fluorescence-free methods. Among various contrast mechanisms, scattering offers unique
opportunities. About two decades ago, we showed that single gold nanoparticles as small as
5 nm could be detected via interferometric detection of their scattering, coined iSCAT. Since
then, it has been shown that unlabeled nano-objects such as viruses and proteins as small as
10kDa can be detected, weighed, counted and tracked. We will discuss the newest
achievements of iSCAT in characterizing unlabeled proteins, extracellular vesicles and cellular
secretomes. Furthermore, I will present our results on three-dimensional label-free imaging
of cellular events such as the endoplasmic reticulum and microtubule dynamics as well as virus
diffusion via confocal iSCAT microscopy. If time permits, I also plan to present an efficient
method for delivering nanoparticles and small molecules to well-defined positions on a cell.

18.00 Mingle with dinner and poster exhibition

Hope to see you there!