Awards, prizes, publications

Particle-exchange heat engines operate without moving parts or time-dependent driving, relying solely on static energy-selective transport. Here, we realize a particle-exchange quantum heat engine based on a single diradical molecule, which is only a few nanometers in size. We experimentally investigate its operation at low temperatures and demonstrate that both the power output and efficiency are significantly enhanced by Kondo correlations, reaching up to 53% of the Curzon–Ahlborn limit. These results establish molecular-scale particle-exchange engines as promising candidates for low-temperature applications where extreme miniaturization and energy efficiency are paramount.

Prof. G.-M. Rignanese was selected to develop the GEMPROMISE project—Generative machine learning for combined process control and materials design—with two other Principal Investigators from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL) and the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS).

Une équipe internationale de physiciens impliquant l’Université d’Amsterdam, l’Université de Torún (Pologne) et l’UCLouvain, est parvenue à confiner des molécules d’hydrogène au sein d’un faisceau laser. Cette prouesse expérimentale, qui confirme une prédiction théorique vieille de 50 ans, vient d’être publiée dans la revue Physical Review Letters.

We present an efficient implementation of the Zero Static Internal Stress Approximation (ZSISA) within the Quasi-Harmonic Approximation framework to compute anisotropic thermal expansion and elastic c

Congratulations to Guillaume ESSER who won the Best Poster Award at the 13th Belgian Crystallography Symposium for his poster entitled "Exploring Isostructural Metal-Organic Frameworks with Biosourced

An iron-anthracene dyad was recently used to populate a microsecond-lived nonluminescent (dark) triplet state, but with a surprisingly low triplet population yield.

This study demonstrates a novel integration of 2D semiconductors with ferromagnets using pulsed laser deposition, revealing hybridization-driven spin manipulation. Vertical spin valves with MoS2 and Ni(111) show exotic bimodal spin signals and strong deviations from Jullière’s model. These results highlight the « 2D spinterfaces » key role in unlocking 2D materials’ potential for advanced spintronic applications and novel spin functionalities.

High-energy excited states with slow rates for internal conversion to the lowest-energy excited state are prone to be intercepted before they dissipate energy to the medium.

For this demonstration, a 50 nm-thick film of the ferroelectric polymer polyvinylidene fluoride–trifluoroethylene (PVDF-TrFE) was used to engrave the 600th anniversary logo at the microscale. Jean Spièce, a researcher in the BSMA division, programmed a scanning probe microscopy tool to locally “draw” arbitrary shapes by precisely modifying the material’s polarization.