IIT nanochemistry research paper among the first of the 25 hottest articles of Physics Reports

The review paper written by the IIT researchers Roman Krahne, Albert Figuerola, Chandramohan George, Sasanka Deka, and Liberato Manna, Director of the Nanochemistry Department, and by Giovanni Morello of CNR, gets into the top positions of the "25 hottest articles" list of Physics Reports.

The review discusses rod-shaped inorganic nanoparticles, that are among the most investigated nano-objects nowadays, both in fundamental science and in various technological applications.

In their paper, "Physical properties of elongated inorganic nanoparticles", the research team describes the physical properties of nanoparticles when their shape is elongated, i.e. rod-like or wirelike. The review comprises optical, electrical, magnetic, mechanical and catalytic properties of metallic and semiconducting nanowires and nanorods.

Link to the article: Roman Krahne et al.

On 16th August Vesti TV, a Russian national news broadcasting channel, reported about the human-machine interface researches that are developed in the IIT Neuroscience and Brain Technologies department, directed by Fabio Benfenati. The journalist Polina Krikun interviewed Michela Chiappalone, post-doc researcher and responsible of the project KHEPERA-HYBRAIN, which is dedicated to the study of the bidirectional communication between cultures of neurons and a small mobile robot, equipped with infra-red sensors, that moves within a circular arena containing obstacles.

Reportage is available here: Vesti.ru – Khepera-Hybrain

A joint study carried out by researchers of CNST IIT@PoliMi and Politecnico di Milano, and followed by Guglielmo Lanzani, coordinator of the IIT center in Milan, has been awarded as the best Poster at the European Conference on Molecular Electronics 2011.

The presented study shines light on the possible photophysical processes occurring in active material for organic solar cells, crucial to understand the device work mechanism.

In particular, it aims to investigate the charge dynamics in a polymer blend (P3HT:PCBM), widely used as active material for efficient bulk heterojunction solar cells. Combining ultrafast pump-probe spectroscopy with confocal microscopy allows a local imaging of the transient absorption signal with simultaneously high temporal (150 fs) and spatial (300nm) resolution.

Both experimental and theoretical investigations reveal a peculiar long lived charge transfer state at the P3HT:PCBM interface, not affected by geminate recombination and characterized by a different polarization with respect to the one in the usual polydispersed blend.

The authors of the Poster are: Giulia Grancini (PoliMi), Dario Polli (PoliMi), Daniele Fazzi (CNST of IIT), Juan Cabanillas-Gonzalez (IMDEA-Madrid), Giulio Cerullo (PoliMi), and Guglielmo Lanzani (CNST of IIT and PoliMi)."

For more information about the conference: http://www.ecme2011.com

IIT research staff is very international, people come from over 30 countries of the world.

They speak about science in English, but sometimes they converse in their own native language.

Thus, Manuel Pernia, visiting researcher at the department of Nanochemistry directed by Liberato Manna, told about his positive research experience in IIT to El Mundo.es, one of the largest digital daily newspaper in Spain.

You can hear the interview at: IIT on ElMundo.es.