MaNEP e-Newsletter MaNEP Nr. 18
MaNEP News – page 1

Special event

The PhysiScope successfully launched

After two years of preparation, the PhysiScope was inaugurated on October 3rd, 2008, in the presence of Charles Beer, head of the Geneva Public Education Dpt (DIP), Geneva officials and many other guests. The official launching of this MaNEP-initiated outreach project towards high-school students - jointly developed with the Geneva Physics Section - was well covered by the local media and immediately aroused a lot of interest.

To this day, the PhysiScope team has thus performed for over 1000 visitors, including VIPs (local and national officials, SNSF representatives, Swiss television representatives, sponsors, etc.). Future developments include for instance new experiments and activities, a broader target audience and more sessions in English and German.
[ www.physiscope.ch ] [ contact : christoph.renner@unige.ch ].

Nominations & awards

Prof. Oystein Fischer

Prof. Oystein Fischer
Prof. Oystein Fischer honoured by Sweden
MaNEP's director, Prof. Oystein Fischer, has been nominated by the Swedish Research Council for the 2009 Tage Erlander Guest Professorship. This distinction was created in 1981 to honour the prime minister Tage Erlander on his 80th birthday. The Professorship gives internationally renowned researchers the opportunity to work for one year with a Swedish University or a higher education institute. Prof. Fischer will thus collaborate with the Chalmers University of Technology in Göteborg to develop strong interactions between research groups at Chalmers and the UniGE. Prof. Fischer will also pursue his task at MaNEP and achieve the mission the UniGE's Rector entrusted him with to conceive new developments for the Physics Section in Geneva.

MaNEP team awarded by « La Recherche »

Last December, one of Professor Triscone’s team in Geneva has been awarded a special prize by the prestigious French science magazine « La Recherche » (in the category of « Communications and Information Technology Science ») for their groundbreaking work on « improper ferrolectricity in perovskite oxide artificial superlattices ». These important results have been obtained in collaboration with a team at the University  of Lièges (Belgium) and published in Nature in April 2008 [ Publication / PDF online ].

Triscone's team
The awarded team, left to right : Nicolas Stücki, Céline Lichtensteiger, Jean-Marc Triscone and Stefano Gariglio (missing on picture : Matthew Dawber)

Award and new appointment for Dr Elvezio Morenzoni

Morenzoni
Dr E. Morenzoni, PSI
July 2008 was a special month for our colleague Elvezio Morenzoni  : on July 1st, he was appointed Head of Laboratory for Muon Spin Spectroscopy at PSI, before receiving the 2008 Yamazaki Prize for μSR-Science awarded by the ISMS (International Society for μSR-Science Spectroscopy), in acknowledgment of his outstanding achievements for the development of low energy μSR.

ETH Zurich Medal

Johan ChangCongratulations to Johan Chang – a PhD student with Professor Joël Mésot - for obtaining the ETH Zurich Medal for his outstanding PhD thesis on "Magnetic and Electronic Properties of the High-Temperature Superconductor La2-xSrxCuO4."

[ also see the Publications Section ]

Outreach

New : Swissneutronics Newsletter

MaNEP at CERNSince August last year, MaNEP’s industrial partner Swissneutronics (neutron optical components and instruments) publishes a newsletter that is available for download here : latest issue : December 2008. For more information or to receive the newsletter directly, please contact : christian.schanzer@swissneutronics.ch

MaNEP at CERN : successful exhibition

MaNEP’s public outreach material on superconductivity continues to prove its sucess. For nearly 4 months (October 2008 to January 31st, 2009), our levitating devices, humorous exhibition by Swiss cartoonist Mix&Remix and 15-minute movie have been on display during CERN’s interactive event called « Superconductivity… Science or Magic ? » which gathered some 3000 visitors, with two opening days a week.  This year, the demos will be shown during more public events in the context of UniGE’s 450th anniversary. More info in due time.

Superconductivity at UniBE

Last November, UniBE organised an event on superconductivity – this time from the point of view of chemists - in the context of their public days for high school students « Bio Chemie am Samstag », during which they used some of MaNEP’s demonstrating devices and the movie. Another success acknowledged by Prof. Jürg Hulliger, with 90 people present.

[ MaNEP news, page 2 ]