On October 1st Marc Serra will start as tenure track group leader at AMOLF. His Hyper Smart Matter group will be embedded in the Designer Matter research theme at AMOLF. Serra intends to design and build complex materials that manipulate sound waves to process information. These materials will enable a wide variety of new devices, from computers that consume very low power to soft robots that accomplish complex tasks autonomously. Serra aims to simultaneously solve practical problems and understand how physical principles such as the laws of thermodynamics fundamentally limit the energy efficiency of computers.
Serra did his Ph.D. at ETH Zurich, in the group of Prof. Chiara Daraio, during that time, he investigated nonlinear processes to harvest energy from random ambient vibrations. Until the end of September he will continue his work as a senior scientist at the Environmental and Exploratory Geophysics group at ETH, using acoustic waves to image the subsurface of the earth.
The EU Pathfinder project Electron Beams Enhancing Analytical Microscopy (EBEAM) that was recently completed has received a highly positive review of the European Innovation Council (EIC). EBEAM brought together eight European research institutions and companies, including AMOLF, that develop new concepts and instruments combining spectroscopic analysis with electron microscopy.
Organoids are instrumental in improving our understanding of processes that are otherwise hidden inside the body. For instance, these small 3D organs can be used to test medicines on tissue grown from a patient’s own cells. AMOLF researchers carry out unique and complex experiments to follow organoids in time. In order to enable other researchers to benefit from their experiences, they now publish their methods in the prestigious journal Nature Protocols.
This year at the opening of the parliamentary year (Prinsjesdag) Minister of Education, Culture and Science Rianne Letschert wears a spectacular hat and shoulder ornament. Both of them are inspired by the microscopic structures studied by group leader Wim Noorduin (AMOLF/UvA), which look remarkably like tiny flowers under a microscope. Artist and designer Malou Beemer translated these shapes, normally invisible to the naked eye, into wearable art.
Why do brains learn, but rocks do not? Could a material one day adapt to its environment the way a living organism does? AMOLF group leader Dr. Nachi Stern has been awarded an ERC Starting Grant to investigate the physical laws of learning, in a project called, “Physical Learning in Dynamical Systems.”
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