News
The outermost layer of ice behaves like liquid water, even at a temperature of –30°C. Physicists at AMOLF have irrefutably demonstrated this using a modern surface-sensitive measuring technique. At lower temperatures, however, the layer of water becomes increasingly thin. The researchers report their findings on 27 November in the journal Angewandte Chemie.
On November 9th the journal Nature Energy highlighted a Nano Letters publication of the Nanoscale Solar Cells group in which they present a new type of tandem solar cell: the three terminal configuration.
In the highlight with the ominous title ‘Dawn of the three-legged beast’, the author Elsa Couderc explains the purpose of introducing a third configuration, in addition to the two existing ones. She also touches on the design of the new device and its accomplishments, such as reaching an efficiency of up to 32,9%.
On October 25th at the Cinekid Festival in Amsterdam, AMOLF scientific group leader Bas Overvelde received a grant to build an interactive art installation. It is one of three original media artworks that will be produced following the “Supernatural: stories of worlds to come” international call for projects (les voyages de capitaine future). The installation is called “The Edge of Chaos” and is designed by the Soft Robotic Matter Group (Amsterdam). Bas Overvelde and designers Vasilija Abramovic, Ruari Glynn from the Interactive Lab are stoked about the news and are gearing up to start building the structure. Upon completion, the art installation will go on tour in Europe (Paris, Amsterdam, Namur) to be exhibited by all four organizers of the competition: Cinekid, la Gaîté Lyrique, KIKK and WoeLab.
The Dick Stufkens Prize 2017 for the best PhD thesis of the Holland Research School of Molecular Chemistry (HRSMC) is awarded to AMOLF postdoc Sven Askes. In his thesis ‘Upconverting Nanovesicles for the Activation of Ruthenium Anti-Cancer Prodrugs with Red Light’, Askes describes a clever combination of materials and techniques for a new approach in photochemical cancer therapy. The jury was impressed by the quality, the originality and the interdisciplinary character of Sven Askes’s PhD thesis and expects that the work will have considerable impact on future development of photochemical cancer therapy.
It is at a temperature of −70 °C that water molecules at the surface of ice make the most bonds with each other. AMOLF researchers, together with an international team of colleagues, describe this in an article in Physical Review Letters published on September 28. Insights into the behavior of the top layer of ice is important for understanding how glaciers move, how avalanches arise, and why we can skate on ice, among other things.
Mechanical metamaterials, which exhibit unusual properties such as shape morphing and programmability, have been found to display further surprising features. When the materials are a step in size larger, new rules seem to apply. This was discovered by AMOLF researchers and collaborators from Leiden University and the University of Amsterdam. Their findings are published in Nature Physics on 25 September.
AMOLF group leader Bas Overvelde has been awarded funding through the programme ‘Creatieve industrie – Kennis Innovatie Mapping’ (KIEM) from NWO Humanities. The funding will go to “Project Cairo: an intelligent soft robotic jacket”. Overvelde will work on this project with the Distributed and Interactive Systems group led by Pablo Cesar (CWI) and with Borre Akkersdijk (Byborre).
AMOLF group leader Ewold Verhagen (Photonic Forces) has received a Starting Grant of 1.5 million euros from the European Research Council (ERC). The ERC uses the Starting Grants to support talented scientists in the early stages of their career in pursuing ground-breaking projects for a duration of five years.
To determine how efficient new solar cells convert sunlight into electricity, small sample cells are tested under ideal conditions. However, the reported efficiency is not very representative of the actual annual yield when the cells are placed onto a rooftop and exposed to the Dutch weather. In a recent article in ACS Energy Letters, AMOLF researchers present a model that predicts how the next generation of solar cells will perform under realistic conditions.
Researchers from AMOLF, the University of Amsterdam (UvA) and the Energy Research Centre of the Netherlands (ECN) have developed a technology to create efficient bright green colored solar panels. Arrays of silicon nanoparticles integrated in the front module glass of a silicon heterojunction solar cell scatter a narrow band of the solar spectrum and create a green appearance for a wide range of angles. The remainder of the solar spectrum is efficiently coupled into the solar cell. The current generated by the solar panel is only reduced by 10%. The realization of efficient colorful solar panels is an important step for the integration of solar panels into the built environment and landscape. The new design was published online on August 15, 2017, in the journal Applied Physics Letters.
As of November 1st, Said Rodriguez will be appointed as AMOLF tenure track group leader. Rodriguez will start a new group on Interacting Photons in the Nanophotonics research theme.
The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) awarded Veni grants to
AMOLF group leader Bas Overvelde (Soft Robotic Matter) and postdoc Cristina Martinez Torres (Biological Soft Matter).