Group News 2024

 Masters Student Seminar: In May the final year masters students presented work they have carried out in their masters theses in front of the whole FACET group. Congratulations to all the students involved on producing interesting and engaging research!

 

 Congratulations to Dr Øystein Gullbrekken who successfully defended his PhD Thesis Titled:   
"Coupled Transport in Li-ion Battery Electrolytes".   
Pictured in the top panel from left to right:  Opponent Professor Frode Seland, Opponent Associate Professor Mahinder Ramdin (TU Delft, Netherlands), Opponent Associate Professor Amber Mace (Uppsala University, Sweden), Dr Øystein Gullbrekken, Supervisor Professor Sverre M. Selbach, Co-supervisor Associate Professor Sondre K. Schnell.

In May, PhD candidate Maria Mykland (in the middle) participated at yCAM in Tampere, Finland. Her presentation, "3D-printing of SiC with Digital Light Processing" was awarded with Best Oral Presentation. yCAM is a conference arranged by Young Ceramic Network, European Ceramic Society and is focusing on additive manufacturing of ceramic materials. 

 

Associate Professor Julian Walker has been recognised as one of the Journal of Physics, Energy emerging leaders 2024 for his work on ferroic materials. 

 

Congratulations to Ida Cathrine Skogvoll for winning a prestigious poster prize at this year's DPG (German Physical Society) in Berlin with her poster:  DFT Study of Local Ferroic Properties at Twin Walls in Ferroelastic CaMnO₃

ISCREAM Internal Seminar 2024

In March, the yearly ISCREAM seminar day (Internal Sustainability Conference for Research on Energy and Advanced Materials) was held at Skistua in Bymarka. The day was filled with excellent presentations by PhD and Postdoc members of the FACET group. During lunch we enjoyed the time skiing, hiking, and making pancakes on an open fire and generally socialising. The day ended with dinner and social activities.

Congratulations to Dr Jiali He who successfully defended her PhD Thesis Titled: 
"Electronic Property Engineering in a Ferroelectric Oxide: Nanostructuring and Advanced Characterization". 
Pictured in the top panel from left to right:  Opponent Associate Professor Julian Walker, Opponent Professor Brahim Dkhil  (Universitè Paris-Saclay, France), Supervisor Professor Dennis Meier, PhD Candidate Dr Jiali He, Opponent Dr Neus Domingo Marimon (Oak Ridge National Laboratory, USA), and Co-supervisor Professor Sverre M. Selbach. 

 

Prof. Mari-Ann Einarsrud received the "Årets Foreleser" award for providing outstanding lectures in the subject "Inorganic Chemistry" in 2024. Årets Foreleser" (Eng: "Lecturer of the year") is the annual prize awarded by the chemical engineering students (through the student organization Høiskolens Chemikerforening) at NTNU to lecturers that have shown extraordinary scientific and pedagogic qualities.

 

 

NKS FUM Annual Meeting 2024

 

FACET group members attended and presented their work at this year's NKS FUM conference in Oslo. Congratulations to all those who contributed!

 

 

The Ocean Grid project just released a video explaining the work done on water trees by one of our PhD students. Water trees are microscopic structures that can appear in certain types of cable and result in catastrophic failure. PhD student Sofie Brandtzæg Hårberg is investigating their causes, together with supervisors Mari-Ann Einarsrud and Sverre Hvidsen (SINTEF).

www.oceangridproject.no

 

Congratulations to Hilde Lea Lein who won the prize for outstanding work in education in this year's NV Faculty Day. 

 

Group News 2023

 

Wishing you the Best for the Coming Season and a Happy New Year!

 

 

Congratulations to Dr Harald Norrud Pollen who successfully defended his PhD Thesis Titled: "Developing High-Energy Cathodes for Li-ion Batteries Based on Ni-rich Layered Oxides". Pictured from left to right: Co-supervisor Professor Ann-Mari Svensson, Opponent Associate Professor Johannes Martin Landesfeind (University of Agder, Norway), Dr Harald Pollen, Opponent Professor, Dr Sc. Ulla Lassi (University of Oulu, Finland), Co-supervisor Dr Julian Tolchard, and main supervisor Associate Professor Nils Peter Wagner.

Congratulation to Dr Florian Flatscher NTNU Teknologi og naturvitenskap for defending his thesis on “Lithium dendrites in solid-state batteries – Where they come from and how to mitigate them”.  Pictured from left to Right: Examiner Professor Dr. Jürgen Janek, Examiner Bernhard Gollas, Dr Florian Flatscher, Supervisor Professor Daniel Rettenwander and Professor Julia Glaum.

 

Congratulations to Dr Kasper Aas Hunnestad who successfully defended his PhD thesis “Nanoscale Chemical Analysis of Ferroic Materials and Phenomena" on Friday 24th November. We are incredibly proud of his great performance.

From left to right: Supervisor Prof. Dennis Meier, Examiners Dr Miryam Arredondo-Arechavala (The Queen's University of Belfast, UK), Professor Baptiste Gault (Max-Planck-Institut für Eisenforschung, Germany), and Associate Professor Hendrik Bentmann, (NTNU, Norway).

Photo Credits: Leonie Richarz

 

Associate Professor Ingrid Hallsteinsen shines light on the recent Nobel Prize winners in Chemistry. The article can be found here: forskning.no .

The LLZO4WC (LLZO 4th World Conference) was successfully hosted by Professor Daniel Rettenwander and his group in Tromsø Norway attracting researchers in solid electrolytes from around the world. 

 

PhD candidate Kristoffer Eggestad presenting his work on "Doping Implications for Garnet Li₇La₃Zr₂O₁₂" as the first in a series new IMA Friday Seminars - showcasing work from across the department. (waffles included)

 

FACET group leader Professor Mari-Ann Einarsrud has won a prestigious Fellowship of the American Ceramic Society.

 

ISCREAM Internal Seminar 2023

 

March heralded in the yearly ISCREAM seminar day (Internal Sustainability Conference for Research on Energy and Advanced Materials) at Skistua in Bymarka. The day was filled with excellent presentations by PhD and Postdoc members of the FACET group. During lunch we enjoyed the time sledding, skiing, making snowmen/cats and generally socialising. The day ended with dinner and social activities.

 

NKS FUM Annual Meeting 2023

 

15 FACET group members presented their work at this year's NKS FUM conference in Værnes. Special congratulations to Frida Hemstad Danmo for winning the best presentation prize for her work on "Kinetics of Oxidation in RMnO3+δ".

 

Dr Frode Håskjold Fagerli successfully defended his PhD thesis "A study on multilayered MXenes for rechargeable battery electrodes through surface termination control" on Friday 20th January

2022

Holiday greetings

All the best wishes for a wonderful holiday season and a happy new year, from all of us at FACET!

CD-Lab in Chemiereport

Austria's Magazine for Economy, Technology and Research (Chemiereport.at) has published an article  (in German) about The International Christian Doppler (CD) Laboratory for Solid State Batteries led by Associate Professor Daniel Rettenwander .

Publication and Gemini-article

The amazing research behind Kasper Aas Hunnestad et al. recent publication Atomic-scale 3D imaging of individual dopant atoms in an oxide semiconductor in Nature Communications, has now also been communicated in an article in Gemini (in Norwegian)

Defence

Vilde Bråten defended her thesis on the 30^th of September.
Trial Lecture: The relevance of thermal diffusion in practical applications
Public Defence: Fundamental Aspects of Thermodynamics of Small Systems Investigated Through Molecular Simulations and Theoretical Descriptions

Project Kick-Off

Daniel Rettenwander and Mir Mehraj Ud Din joned the Kick-Off Meeting of Daniels new M-ERA.NET Project SOLIMEC at the UAM in Madrid

Funding

Associate Professor Daniel Rettenwander received funding from the RCN. He will coordinate a consortium based on UiO, Freyr, and Cerpotech developing advanced composite electrolytes. A PhD position will be announced soon.

Conference

Our PhD-student Florian and Postdoc Mir did great contributions at the Solid-state ionics (SSI-23) in Boston (23rd International Conference on Solid State Ionics (SSI 23) (mrs.org))

Award

Jan Schultheiß received the 2022 Electroceramics Young Researcher Award (EYRA) for his contributions to the study of ferroelectric domains and do ain-walls, which he carried out at FACET.

UFFC Ferroschool 2022

Six of our PhD students participated at the UFFC ferroschool in Lyon, where Professor Dennis Meier also gave a highly appreciated lecture on " Improper ferroelectrics - domains, domain walls and emergent functional properties". We congratulate all our PhD-students for their effort in the poster sessions and especially Jiali He and Kasper Aas Hunnestad who both received a prize each for best poster, elected by the the organizing committee and Ferroschool participants respectively.

Publication

Vilde Bråten's recently published paper "Equation of state for confined fluids" is featured in a Scilight Article by AIP Publishing 

NV Faculty Day Award

Professor Dennis Meier received the NV Faculty Day award for Outstanding Research during this years NV Faculty Day.

Dennis Meier at the Department of Materials Science and Engineering is an exceptional researcher who, despite his young age, has established himself internationally as one of the leading researchers in his field of research. He has great international visibility and is recognized for his world-leading research results. In his international work, he helps define the direction of future research in the field.

Defence

Erik Dobloug Roede defended his thesis on the 23^rd of May.
Trial Lecture: Beyond Dual-beam FIB - Opportunities, challenges, and examples of Triple-beam FIB/SEM
Public Defence: FIB and Functional Ferroics: Structuring and Correlated Microscopy

Master student seminar

Our awesome master students presented their master projects at our master student seminar last Thursday. We thank the students for their great presentations and everybody who contributed to the nice discussions following them.

Defence

Elise Ramleth Østli defended her thesis on the 13^th of May.
Trial Lecture: Towards more sustainable processing of electrodes for Li-ion batteries
Public Defence: Stabilizing strategies for the high‐voltage cathode material LiNi_0.5-xMn_1.5+xO₄ (LNMO)

Gemini-senter for Thermal Energy Storage

On the 11th of May 2022 the new Gemini-senter for Thermal Energy Storage (Termisk Energilagring, TEL) was announced for the period from 2022 to 2026. The Center involves research groups from Sintef Energy, Sintef Industry, Sintef Ocean, NTNU Department of energy and Process Engineering, and Department of Materials Science and Engineering with FACET group members Julian Walker, Mari-Ann Einarsrud and Sverre Selbach. The center will strengthen and make visible the Norwegian research and educational environment within thermal energy storage by stimulating competence building and collaboration across organizations and professional groups that can span the full range of technology readiness levels, from fundamental research to prototype testing.

Defence

Inger-Emma Nylund defended her thesis on the 22^nd of April.
Trial Lecture: Progress and perspectives of oxide cathodes for Li batteries
Public Defence: Transmission Electron Microscopy of ferroic materials

Seminar

On the 7^th of April we had our annual internal seminar, iSCREAM, at Skihytta in Bymarka. The day was filled with excellent presentations from some of the PhD Candidates in the group. During lunch we enjoyed the good weather by sleeding, skiing or just enjoying the sun in "solveggen" at Skihytta. The day ended with dinner and social activities such as cake competition and board games.

Price

Our PhD Candidate, Frode Fagerli, won first place in this years edition of the research dissemination competition PhD Grand Prix, arranged by chemical students at the NV faculty.

Defence

Morten Martinsen defended his thesis on the 10^th of March.
Trial Lecture: Multifunctional self-healing coatings for improved corrosion protection – current status, challenges and future aspects
Public Defence: Novel Coatings with low adhesion to ice

Publication

Asmira Delic's publication Fluorescent Nanocomposites: Hollow Silica Microspheres with Embedded Carbon Dots is featured in ChemPlusChem's Readers Choice Special Collection after being one of their most most accessed papers in the last 12 months.

Publication

Kristine Bakken's recent publication Tailoring Preferential Orientation in BaTiO₃-based Thin Films from Aqueous Chemical Solution Deposition got the cover picture on Chemistry-Methods (Issue 2 Volume 2).

Defence

Mohammed Mostafa Adnan defended his thesis on the 4^th of February.
Trial Lecture: Future lead-free high voltage subsea cables – materials, design and challenges
Public Defence: In situ nanocomposites for high voltage insulation

Toppforst project finalised

The Toppforsk project From chemical solutions to oxide thin films and hierarchical structures was finalised recently resulting in almost 30 scientific publications and the training of 2 PhD candidates (Kristine Bakken and Ola G. Grendal) and 3 post docs (Anders Bank Blichfeld, Kenneth Marshall and Dong Hou). In the project we developed an in situ characterisation platform for the studies of reactions, nucleation and growth during the deposition of thin films and nanostructured materials from an aqueous solution. (see Experimental Equipment under Materials Design through Green Chemistry)

2021

Holiday greetings

All of us at FACET send you all the best wishes for a wonderful holiday season and a happy new year!

Student seminar

Our awesome master students presented their projects at the seminar and we had nice discussions about the different research projects.

Defence

Jacob Hadler-Jacobsen defended his thesis on the 29^th of November.
Trial Lecture: Electrochemical analysis of ion-diffusion in intercalation type batteries
Public Defence: A Computational Investigation of Rechargeable Magnesium Batteries and MXenes

Defence

Anuvansh Sharma defended his thesis on the 11^th of November.
Trial Lecture: Polymer gels: properties, interactions, and applications
Public Defence: Magnetic and Stimuli-Responsive Nanoparticles for Environmental and Biomedical Applications

Conference

Many of FACETs members participated at the NKS-FUM conference at Lillestrøm 1^st and 2^nd of November. We thank the organizers from UiO for making an event filled with interesting talks and a good environment to get to know and spend time with colleagues from from NTNU, UiO, UiS, USN, Sintef and IFE.

We congratulate our PhD-student Viviann Hole Pedersen who won the prize for best poster.

We in FACET already look forward to host the event next year!

Editorial Board

Professor Dennis Meier was invited to join the Editorial Board of Communication Physics, which is a high impact journal associated with Nature publications.

Defence

Asmira Delic defended her thesis on the 1^th of October.
Trial Lecture: Thermal energy storage with phase change materials
Public Defence: Luminescent silica-based nanocomposites for detection of liquid organic compounds

Defence

Ingeborg Treu Røe defended her thesis on the 28^th of September.
Trial Lecture: Current state and future prospects for a sodium based battery
Public Defence: Atomic origins of dendrite formation on alkali and earth-alkali metal surfaces

Christian Doppler Laboratory for Solid State Batteries

NTNU has launched the International Christian Doppler (CD) Laboratory for Solid State Batteries. The laboratory is led by Associate Professor Daniel Rettenwander.

In recent years, intensive research has been carried out on solid-state electrolytes and materials have been developed that have a similarly high ionic conductivity to liquid electrolytes. This allows to design solid-state batteries that have higher energy and power densities than conventional lithium-ion batteries with liquid electrolyte. However, the implementation of solid-state electrolytes in lithium-ion batteries quickly revealed multiple problems related to the interfaces formed between the solid-state electrolyte and the electrodes that lead to a significant loss of performance. The main focus of research at International CD laboratory is to investigate the underlaying degradation processes taking place at the interfaces and suggesting mitigation strategies to overcome the current bottlenecks in order to realize safe energy storage systems that fit for electric vehicles and other high-energy applications.

The International Christian Doppler Laboratory for Solid-State Batteries is supported by the AVL List GmbH together with the Federal Ministry for Digital and Economic Affairs (BMDW) in Austria.

New Associate Professor

Associate professor Julian Walker joined our group on the 16^th of August and his field of research is sustainable functional materials.

Funding

The project Heterostructure optimization and novel epitaxy yielding chalcogenide-oxide magnetic bilayers, lead by Associate Professor Ingrid Hallsteinsen, was granted Research Project for Young Talents-funding from The Research Council of Norway.

NTNU nano Q&A

Associate Professor Ingrid Hallsteinsen is this month's Q&A reseacher at NTNU nano and she has answered questions about her work in the interview Running the nanomaterials lab: Q&A with Ingrid Hallsteinsen

Award

Erik Roede won the 2021 NanoLab Image Contest with this SEM image of a FIB-cut ferromagnetic lamella on electrical contacts, overlaid with the magnetic domain structure from MFM

Defence

Erik Nikolai Lysne defended his thesis on the 9^th of June.
Trial Lecture: Neuromorphic Computing: Materials to Systems Architecture
Public Defence: Novel Topological Spin Solitons for Spintronics Applications

Sustainability Workshop

On Friday 7^th of May FACET held the online Workshop Sustainability in Functional Materials Research for members of the Department of Material Science and Engineering. The workshop was successfully held on the digtal platform Gather Town, which you can see a screenshot of below. A huge thank you to the external speakers; Laura Stoica from Thales, UK, Dorthe Ravnsbaek from University of Southern Denmark, Elizabeth Dickey from Carnegie Mellon University, USA, Clive Randall from Pennsylvania State University, USA; and our own PhD and Post Docs, for all their excellent talks. Also, last but not least, a huge thank you to Julian Walker and Caitlin Guzzo for organising the event.​​​

Publication

The publication Anisotropic in-plane dielectric and ferroelectric properties of tensile-strained BaTiO₃ films with three different crystallographic orientations from T. M. Raeder et al. was featured on the cover of AIP Advances February 2021 issue.

Publication

Henning Kaland's study on "MXene/CNT composite cathode hosts for rechargeable magnesium sulfur batteries" was recently published as a cover feature in ChemSuSChem.

Award

Jan Schultheiß received the second place at the poster competition of the 96th Annual Meeting of the German Ceramic Society (DKG) for his contribution "Electronic transport at ferroelectric domain walls under alternating voltages".

Defence

Henning Kaaland defended his thesis on the 12^th of March.
Trial Lecture: Fluoride ion batteries (FIBs), state of the art, challenges and future directions
Public Defence: Pursuing New Cathode Materials for Rechargeable Magnesium Batteries

Publication

Daniel Rettenwander's article The natural critical current density limit for Li₇La₃Zr₂O₁₂ garnets has been added to the online collection Journal of Materials Chemistry A most popular articles 2020

Publication

Benjamin Williamson contributed to the recent publication Experimental and Theoretical Study of the Electronic Structures of Lanthanide Indium Perovskites LnInO₃ substrates—A transmission electron microscopy study from P. Hartley et al. , which got the ASC Editor's Choice.

Publication

The recent publication Epitaxial (100), (110), and (111) BaTiO₃ films on SrTiO₃ substrates—A transmission electron microscopy study from I.-E. Nylund et al. became a Featured article in Journal of Applied Physics (Issue 9, Volume 129)

New Associate Professor

Associate professor Daniel Rettenwander joins our group on the 1^st of March, his field of research is battery technology.

Publication

Jan Schultheiß's data made it onto the cover of Journal of Applied Physics (Issue 7, Volume 129).

Dissemination

PhD-candidate Jacob Hadler-Jacobsen is the expert in the newest episode of The Norwegian Climate Foundation's science series #Klimakvarteret about battery technology as a climate solution.

Portraits

Professor Mari-Ann Einarsrud and PhD candidate Mohammed Mostafa Adnan were both recently portraited by ISGS News in the two columns People in the spotlight and A focus on our PhD students, respectively.

Publication

The recent publication Anisotropic in-plane dielectric and ferroelectric properties of tensile-strained BaTiO₃ films with three different crystallographic orientations from T. M. Raeder et al. got the Editor's Pick in AIP Advances (Issue 1 Volume 11).

Award

We congratulate PhD candidate Viviann Hole Pedersen on being awarded 2nd place in the EMA (Electronic Material and Applications) Conference, 2021 virtual meeting’s poster competition. Her poster was titled “Aqueous chemical solution deposition of Sr_xBa_1-xNb₂O₆ thin films”.

2020

Defence

Solveig Stubmo Aamlid defended her thesis on the 6^th of November.
Trial Lecture: "Ionic conduction in the solid-state"
Public Defence: "Structure, disorder, and oxygen vacancies in ferroelectric tetragonal tungsten bronzes"

New Associate Professor

Associate professor Ingrid Hallsteinsen joined our group, she will be responsible for the activities related to PLD.

Dissemination

PhD Candidate Vilde Bråten came in 2^nd place in this year’s national finale of Researchers' Grand Prix. Jacob Hadler-Jacobsen made it to the top 3 in the regional finale and Frida Paulsen Danmo also gave an excellent presentation of her research in the regional finale. Congratulations to all!

Defence

Nikolai Helth Gaukås defended his thesis on the 11^th of September.
Trial Lecture: "Ferroelectric tungsten bronzes"
Public Defence: "Lead-Free Ferroelectric KNN Films for Biomedical Applications"

Award

Jan Schultheiß received the JECS Trust Poster Award for his work on "Conductivity Mapping at Charged Domain Walls in ErMnO₃ under Alternating Voltages" at the virtual Electroceramics XVII conference.

Publication

Kenneth Marshall's recent publication got the cover picture on Chemistry A European Journal (Issue 26 Volume 42).

Defence

Trygve Magnus Ræder defended his thesis on the 22^nd of June.
Trial Lecture: "Recent advances in X-ray imaging techniques at the nanoscale"
Public Defence: "In-plane Ferroelectricity in Barium Titanate Films"

Defence

Kara Kamen Poon defended her thesis on the 8^th of May.
Trial Lecture: "Structural Health Monitoring – Current Status and Future Perspectives"
Public Defence: "Development of Piezoelectric BCZT Ceramics as Electroactive Bone Implant Materials”

Defence

Kristine Bakken defended her thesis on the 7^th of May.
Trial Lecture: "Self-healing functional materials"
Public Defence: "In situ Characterization of Ferroelectric Oxide Thin Films during Aqueous Chemical Solution Deposition”

Defence

Theodor Secanell Holstad defended his thesis on the 28^th of April.
Trial Lecture: "Atomic-scale Microscopy and its Application to Complex Oxides"
Public Defence: "Emergent nanoscale functionality in uniaxial ferroelectrics”

Defence

Raymond Luneng defended his thesis on the 27^th of March.
Trial Lecture: "Challenges and possibilities in recycling of spent potlining"
Public Defence: "Thermal Insulation Materials in Aluminum Electrolysis Cells”

Awards

Professor Sverre Magnus Selbach received the “Fridtjof Nansens belønning for yngre forskere” (award for young scientists) for 2020 from Det Norske Videnskaps-Akademi. He’s receiving the award for his outstanding work in materials science.

Defence

Ola Gjønnes Grendal defended his thesis on the 9^th of March.
Trial Lecture: "Smart fabrics – materials, performance and future prospects"
Public Defence: "In situ X-ray diffraction studies during hydrothermal synthesis of ferroelectric materials”

Awards

PhD Candidate Asmira Delic won the prize for best presentation and the prize for best poster went to PhD Candidate Frode Håskjold Fagerli at the 7th National Meeting on Inorganic and Materials Chemistry (Værnes 2020).

Celebration

Pictures from the celebration event we had to congratulate Professor Dennis Meier on receiving an ERC Consolidator Grant! In addition to the FACET group members, the Rector, Pro-Rector for Research, Dean of the Natural Science faculty and Head of the Department all turned up for the celebration.

Awards

Two of our group members won prices at the Faculty of Natural Sciences yearly award ceremony; Dr. Susanne Linn Skjærvø won the «Best PhD thesis» and MSc Viviann Hole won «Best Master of Technology student».

2019

Funding

Professor Tor Grande got a FRIPRO grant for the project “High-Temperature Lead-Free Ferroelectrics based on Tungsten Bronzes”, Professor Sverre Magnus Selbach got a FRIPRO grant for the project “Domain Walls as Oxide Synapses for Neuromorphic Circuitry” and Associate Professor Julia Glaum got a NANO2021 grant for the project “Self-sufficient Electromechanical Implants: Enabling Piezoelectric Functionality for in vivo devices”, all from the Norwegian Research Council.

International Year of the Periodic Table

Two our academic staff made sure that the periodic table handing in one of the most frequently used auditoriums (R7) on campus was updated. Since this year has been the International Year of the Periodic Table and the 150th year anniversary it seemed only fitting that periodic table used for teaching in general and inorganic chemistry had all the elements with their name.

Grant

Professor Dennis Meier has been awarded the ERC Consolidator Grant which will be used for the project “Creating building blocks for atomic-scale electronics“.

Defence

Trond Brandvik defended his thesis on the 29^th of November.
Trial Lecture: "Reduction of carbon footprint in aluminium electrolysis"
Public Defence: "Degradation of Refractory Lining in Carbon Anode Baking Furnaces”

Defence

Samuel Senanu defended his thesis on the 5^th of November.
Trial Lecture: "Electrochemical Intercalation in Graphitic Carbon"
Public Defence: "Cathode Wear in Aluminium Electrolysis Cells”

Prize

Several of our group members participated in this years NTNU Nano Symposium, Mohammed Mostafa Adnan and Inger-Emma Nylund with posters and Erik Roede, Dr. Magnus Rotan and Anuvansh Sharma all gave talks. PhD Candidate Erik Roede also received a prize for his talk.

Researchers' Grand Prix

Researchers' Grand Prix is an annual research dissemination competition for PhD Candidates. This year PhD Candidates Ola Gjønnes Grendal and Ingeborg Treu Røe participated in the reginal final of Researchers' Grand Prix in Trondheim, and Ola made it to the national final. Ingeborg presented her work on lithium batteries and Ola presented one of the applications of his research on ferroelectric materials.

Award

Dr. Rokas Sazinas, former member of FACET, received the Yara Birkeland price 2019 for his PhD thesis on the mechanical and chemical stability of proton conducting oxide electrolytes based on BaZrO₃.

Seminar

​​​ We had our annual FACET welcome seminar on Thursday September 12^th, where some of our PhD Candidates presented their work. The presentations where followed by pizza, quiz and socializing.

Award

PhD candidate Solveig Aamlid received funding from “I.K. Lykkes fond – vitenskapelige stipend” to support her research on density functional theory on tungsten bronzes in collaboration with professor Ullrich Aschauer at University of Bern.

Award

Professor Dennis Meier received the “Fridtjof Nansens belønning for yngre forskere” (award for young scientists) for 2019 from Det Norske Videnskaps-Akademi (Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters). He received the award for his outstanding work in material physics.

Price

Two of our amazing PhD Candidates participated in this years edition of the research dissemination competition PhD Grand Prix, arranged by chemical students at the NV faculty. Frida Paulsen Danmo won first place, while Vilde Bråten placed third.

Award

Professor Mari-Ann Einarsrud received the “Årets Foreleser” award for providing outstanding lectures in her courses in 2018. “Årets Foreleser” (Eng: “Lecturer of the year”) is the annual prize awarded by the chemical engineering students, (through the student organization Høiskolens Chemikerforening) at NTNU, to lecturers that have shown extraordinary scientific and pedagogic qualities. The jury chose Mari-Ann Einarsrud for her ability to explain complex topics in a structured and understandable way using visual aids and demonstrations, and for the way she is encouraging students to participate and ask questions which stimulates learning.

Award

Professor Dennis Meier received the I.K. Lykke prize for exceptional young researchers within the field of sciences from the Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters (Det Kongelige Norske Videnskabers Selskab, DKNVS).

Award

Professor Dennis Meier and Professor Sverre Selbach was awarded a Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation Visitor award from the American Physical Society. The award allows our group to bring Dr. Sinéad Griffin from Berkeley for an exchange, further strengthening our network with Berkeley.

2018

Award

​​​

On Researcher’s Night in September some of the PhD Candidates from our group represented the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at their stand “Fremtidens Supermaterialer” (“Future Super-Materials”). Nikolai Helth Gaukås, Jacob Hadler-Jacobsen, Elise Østli, Frida Danmo and Solveig Aamlid demonstrated the concept of superconductivity for the visiting high school students. Last week it was announced that our stand was voted the “Best Stand” by the students! Ceramic materials with functional properties was definitely popular, thanks to our Dream team. A brief description of the stand is given below.

Future Super-Materials: Ceramic materials is so much more than just the mug you drink coffee from in the morning, or the plate you put your dinner on. Just from the periodic table, we can design materials with a wide range of properties. At our stand we demonstrate how we can make hovering trains from superconducting oxides, how we can make a material vibrate by using piezoelectric oxides, but also how to thermoelectric materials can change a normal candle into a floodlight. All of this is material science!

Defence

Sathya Prakash Singh defended his thesis on the 23^th of November.
Trial Lecture: "Additive manufacturing of ceramic components and devices"
Public Defence: "Development of oxides with n-type electronic conductivity for applications in high temperature thermoelectric generators (TEGs)"

Award

PhD Candidate Trygve M. Ræder received the price for best oral presentation at the national meeting “Faggruppe for Uorganisk Kjemi og materialkjemi» at 21. Landsmøte i kjemi, Lillestrøm October 22, 2018.

New Equipment

The Active Biomedical Ceramics group previously received funds from the Anders Jahres Fund which will be used to upgrade the equipment in our lab. Now, with the financial support from the department it’s possible to buy a freeze dryer and a cold finger. We are very excited that we soon will be able to produce porous samples from aqueous solution/suspensions by freeze casting and freeze drying!

Defence

Susanne Linn Skjærvø defended her thesis on the 11^th of October.
Trial Lecture: "Polar organic-inorganic hybrid materials; principles and recent trends"
Public Defence: "In situ characterization during hydrothermal synthesis of alkali niobates"

Defence

Astrid Marthinsen defended her thesis on the 21^st of September.
Trial Lecture: "Hybrid material interfaces between dissimilar crystals - opportunities and challenges"
Public Defence: "First principles study of epitaxial strain induced phenomena and chemical expansion in perovskite oxides"

Defence

Didrik René Småbråten defended his thesis on the 31^st of August.
Trial Lecture: "Interfaces between oxides and 2D materials - opportunities and challenges" .
Public Defence: "Defect chemistry and ferroelectric domain walls in hexagonal manganitess" .

Workshop

​​​

More than sixty outstanding scientists and engineers from all over Europe (BE, CZ, DK, FR, FI, DE, EL, IT, NL, NO, PT, ES, CH, UK), NZ, the USA, Japan, and China were brought together this year in the prestigious workshop "cluster surface interaction". This successful event, organized by Assoc. Prof. Maria Benelmekki, in collaboration with Departments of Physics at NTNU and Nanomaterials Lab at Swansea University, offered an excellent opportunity to introduce our new state-of-the-art PLD/nanocluster source system to the Cluster-Beam-International-Community, making us the first experimental research group from Norway in the cluster-beam field. The workshop, hosted by NTNU, offered thirty invited talks, ten contributed talks and twenty-one posters, in both experimental and computational research. The success of the event is reflected in the five different expressions of interest from DK, ES, IT, EL and NZ to host the CSI2020.

Honor

Sandra Helen Skjærvø was awarded the price for this year’s best PhD thesis at the Faculty of Natural Sciences (NTNU) for her work on Structural and chemical stability of hexagonal manganites!

Award

The Active Biomedical Ceramics group received an award from the Anders Jahres foundation (in Norwegian), which will be used on a freeze drier to explore new ways of making porous ceramics.

Publication

Assoc. Prof Dennis Meier explains Topological domain walls in helimagnets in this popular science article in Gemini.no, (only in Norwegian). Based on this recent publication.

Defence

Laura Rioja-Monllor defended her thesis on the 4^th of May.
Trial Lecture: "High temperature electrolyser cells - materials and challenges for future energy storage systems".
Public Defence: "In situ exsolution synthesis of composite cathodes for protonic ceramic fuel cells".

Seminar

On the 13^th of April we had our annual internal seminar, iSCREAM, at Sletvika Feltstasjon. The day was filled with excellent presentations from some of the PhD Candidates in the group, followed by dinner and social activities like a cake competition, board games or a hike in the nearby nature.

Defence

Nikola Kanas defended his thesis on the 22^nd of March.
Trial Lecture: "Cold sintering of ceramics - mechanisms, possibilities and challenges".
Public Defence: "Development and ceramic processing of all-oxide thermoelectric module with direct p-n junction".

Price

PhD Candidate Nikolai Gaukås won the PhD Grand Prix for 2018.
PhD Grand Prix is an annual research dissemination competition arranged by the chemical students at the NV faculty, where 8 PhD Candidates from several different departments (IKP, IBT, IKJ and IMA) have 5 minutes to talk about their research in an inspiring and entertaining way.

Honor

Assoc. Prof Hilde Lea Lein is one of nine professor that received a recognition of their pedagogical competence from NTNU. This is part of NTNUs work to emphasize the importance and increase the status of teaching at a university level. Assoc. Prof Hilde Lea Lein received this recognition for her long teaching experience, but especially for the “Virtuelle kjemiske rom” (virtual chemical room) project.

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2017:

Reseach

The setup for synchrotron in situ XRD on thin films made by Anders B. Blichfeld was mentioned in the latest ESRF news magazine (pp 10, No. 77). The whole magazine can be found here.

Funding

New FRIPRO-funding for our group! 
The “Modified 2D van-der-Waals materials for advanced bio-applications”-project lead by Maria Benelmekki and  the “High-capacity 2D layered materials for Mg-ion batteries”-project lead by Fride Vullum-Bruer was granted FRIPRO funds from The Research Council of Norway. Additionally, Sondre Schnells work on “Nanothermodynamics for Molecular Machines” got funds through the Young Research Talents grants. 

In addition Maria Benelmekki is involved in the multidisciplinary FRIPRO project “Nanomorphology effects on the bioactivity and chemical activity of metal oxides, sulphides, and silicates” in collaboration with IGP, IBT, and the Department of Earth and Environmental Engineering, Columbia University, USA.

Defence

Mads Jonas Christensen defended his thesis on the 24^th of November.
Trial Lecture: "Functional ion defects in transition metal oxides".
Public Defence: “Fabrication of lead-free ferroelectric thin films based on Bi_0.5Na_0.5TiO₃ by aqueous chemical solutions deposition”.

Funding

The project "Bio-degradable Li-ion battery anodes" lead by Assoc. Prof. Fride Vullum-Bruer in our group, was one of five project that was granted founding from The Research Council of Norway’s “NANO2021” program!
The project focus on trying to develop environmentally friendly and biodegradable battery-anodes based on the shell from algae and using binders extracted from kelp.

Publication

Exciting new book from Norges Tekniske Vitenskapsakademi about how Technology is changing society, where Associate Professor Fride Vullum-Bruer is co-author of the chapter on Nanotechnology!
Teknologien endrer samfunnet (only in Norwegian).

Defence

Rokas Sažinas defended his thesis on the 20^th of October.
Trial Lecture: "Novel cathodes for low and high temperature ceramic fuel cells".
Public Defence: "Stability and cation diffusion in BaZrO₃-based proton conducting solid state electrolytes".

Guest Lecture

Dr. Tsuyoshi Miyazaki gave a guest lecture on “A linear-scaling DFT code CONQUEST for the DFT simulations on million-atom systems” on the 5^th of October.

Funding

Our PhD candidate Muhammad Saqib Qayuum got funds from EU under NFFA program (PhD student mobility), which will be used to go to ICN2-Barcelona and use their PLD-system and EELS on his super BN nanosheets. Congratulations!

Defence

Sandra Helen Skjærvø defended her thesis on the 15^th of September.
Trial Lecture: "Frustrated systems - materials at the structural stability edge".
Public Defence: “Structural and chemical stability of the hexagonal manganites”.

Defence

Lu Wang defended his thesis on the 14^th of September.
Trial Lecture: "Multivalent battery technologies: from Li-ion and the quest for new technologies".
Public Defence: "Mn₃O₄ and Carbon-Based Cathode Materials for Magnesium Batteries".

Lecture

Marie Curie Fellow Dr. Julia Glaum held a lecture on "Biomedical applications of ceramics with focus on piezoelectric materials" on 12th of September.

Defence

Antoine Robert Marie Dalod defended his thesis on the 8^th of September.
Trial Lecture: "Polar organic-inorganic hybrid materials".
Public Defence: "In situ synthesis of titania and titanium based organic-inorganic nanomaterials".

Visit

Dr. Fayna Mammeri (Maître de Conférences HDR en Chimie) at Paris Diderot University visited our group on the 28^th of August under the Åsgard Research Program. Her visit was the starting point for a near future collaboration in research (including magneto-palsmonic nanomaterials, multiferroics and their PVDF-based nanocompsites). The collaboration will include the restarting of student exchange between both institutions.

Research

In July the Toppforsk team went to the Synchrotron beam at ESRF-SNBL (in Grenoble) to do in insitu XRD both on hydrothermal synthesis and thin films from chemical solution deposition, with exciting results!

Visiting Professor

Prof. Eric Bousquet from University of Liege visited our group on the 27^th to 30^th of June, and held a guest lecture titled: "Magnetoelectric response from first-principles: microscopic understanding and design rules".

Honor

One of our PhD Candidates, Mikalai Zhuk, recently received an award from the Anders Jahres foundation, which will be used to upgrade our mechanical testing facilities to allow mechanical tests in liquid environments.

Seminar

The annual Master seminar took place on the 7^th of June, where 10 of our master students presented the work they have done for their master thesis. Following the seminar, the whole group went for barbecuing and socializing in Korsvika.

Honor

Gerhard Henning Olsen was awarded the price for this year’s best PhD thesis at the Faculty of Natural Sciences (NTNU) for his work on Ferroelectric Tungsten Bronzes in our group!

Honor

NTNU has selected three of our group members, Dennis Meier, Julia Glaum and Sondre Kvalvåg Schnell, for the Outstanding Academic Fellow programme (Stjerneprogrammet)! Read more about it here.

Award

Congratulations to Kara Poon for her 2^nd place in the poster competition at the Training School “Non Living Materials meet living Biology”!

Seminar

On the 28^th-29^th of April our group went to Mjuklia (Berkåk) for our annual internal seminar iSCREAM! The PhD students held short presentations about their project during the day, followed by good food and social activities. One of the highlights was the traditional and prestigious cake completion. Of the many scientifically inspired cakes that competed, Donald Evens’s cake was judged the best!

Visiting Professor

Professor Koji Amezawa, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan has been appointed KIFEE professor at NTNU and will visit our research group the coming week. He gave a guest lecture Thursday 27^th of April titled: "Evaluation of Efficiency of Proton Ceramics Fuel Cells considering mixed conduction in solid electrolytes".
Professor Koji Amezawas group is focusing on solving environmental and energy problems for achieving a sustainable society throughout fundamental and application researches on environmental-friendly energy-conversion devices, such as solid oxide fuel cells and lithium ion secondary batteries.
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KIFEE - Kyoto International Forum for Energy and Environment was created by the universities in the Kyoto region to develop an international arena for strategic cooperation between universities working to develop a sustainable society, inspired by the Kyoto Protocol.

Visiting Professor

Paul Muralt (Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland; IEEE Distinguished Lecturer) visited our research group Friday 7th of April and held a lecture titled "Pushing the performance of electro-mechanical thin films".

Defence

Dr. Mtabazi G. Sahini defended his PhD thesis on the 24^th of March.

Honor

Dennis Meier was awarded the highly prestigious Gustav-Herz-Preis for 2017 and just gave his prize talk "Functional domain walls in multiferroic oxides" at the DPG spring meeting in Dresden. Congratulations with the prize and an excellent talk!

Award

A large delegation from our research group attended the 9^th KIFEE symposium in Kyoto in the in March. Our PhD student Ola Grendal won one of the presentation awards with his poster "In situ studies of phase developments during hydrothermal synthesis of of oxide piezoelectrics".

Honor

Assoc. Prof. Sverre Magnus Selbach received the "Årets Foreleser" award for providing outstanding lectures in the subject "Functional Materials" in spring 2016. Årets Foreleser" (Eng: "Lecturer of the year") is the annual prize awarded by the chemical engineering students (through the student organization Høiskolens Chemikerforening) at NTNU to lecturers that have shown extraordinary scientific and pedagogic qualities. The jury chose Sverre Selbach for his ability to explain complex topics in an understandable, engaging and entertaining way.

 

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