“Coffee Rings” presented at Gothenburg Science Festival 2023

Coffee Ring exposition at science festival Gothenburg. (Photo by C. Beck Adiels.)
Our recent work on “coffee rings” was presented at the Gothenburg Science Festival, which, with about 100 000 visitors each year, is one of the largest popular science events in Europe.

On Wednesday 19th April 2023, Marcel Rey, Laura Natali, Daniela Pérez Guerrero and Caroline Adiels set up a stand in Nordstan.

In this guided exhibition, visitors were able to observe the flow inside a drying droplet using optical microscopes. They learned how the suspended solid coffee particles flow from the inside towards the edge of the coffee droplet, where they accumulate and cause the characteristic coffee ring pattern after drying.

Nowadays, the coffee ring effect presents still a major challenge in ink-jet printing or coating technologies, where a uniform drying is required. We thus shared our recently developed strategies to overcome the coffee ring effect and obtain a uniform deposit of drying droplets.

And finally, visitors were also offered a freshly-brewed espresso to not only drink but also to experience the “coffee ring effect” hands on.

Laura Natali participated in the Ämnets dag at the University of Gothenburg

Exemplary simulations of Active Brownian Particles proposed during the Ämnets Dag. (Figure by L. Natali.)
On Tuesday 1 November 2022 the event called “Ämnets dag” took place at the university of Gothenburg.

The event is aimed to physics and science teachers at different school levels working in the Gothenburg area. Laura Natali joined the initiative and organised one of the workshops available. The activity prepared was an introductory class to simulations modelling active matter.

The workshop addressed the basic aspects of active matter and some examples of its relevant applications nowadays. The focus was on a hands-on workshop, to try out simulations and give a qualitative idea of active behaviour and the effect of different parameters on it. Next to the simulated active particles, it was also possible to play with Hexbugs a simple robotic example of active matter.

Stay tuned for more activities like this!

Career Webinar with Christian Reimer: From electro-optics to a start-up company

Christian Reimer, Co-founder and Head of Product at HyperLight and OSA Ambassador

The OSA Student chapter together with FFF will host a career webinar again, this time with Christian Reimer, Co-founder and Head of Product at HyperLight and OSA Ambassador. 

Christian Reimer will give a talk with title: Electro-optics with thin film lithium niobite and what it is like to work at a start-up company.

In the scientific part of his talk, Christian will give an introduction to the field of integrated photonics with thin-film lithium niobate, with a  focus on electro-optic applications, as well as recent progress on transforming the field from chip-based proof-of-concept realizations for wafer-scale production.

In the professional development section, he will then share his experience transitioning from academia to a start-up company. He will talk about differences and similarities in the work environment, what to expect in terms of tasks and responsibilities, and explain how salaries at start-ups can include combinations of equity and incentives.

Christian Reimer´s mini bio:  Dr. Christian Reimer is a physicist and entrepreneur working in the fields of nonlinear optics, integrated photonics and quantum optics. He received graduate degrees from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany, Heriot-Watt University in Scotland, and the National Institute of Scientific Research in Canada. He then worked as a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University, before becoming Co-Founder and Head of Product of HyperLight Corporation. HyperLight, a Venture-Capital funded start-up out of Harvard University, is specialized on integrated lithium niobate technologies for ultra-high performance photonic solutions.

The webinar will be on the 9th of December at 16:30 via zoom.

Registration is required: https://tinyurl.com/reimer-OSA-FFF

Lucero nominated for “Best HealthTech Startup” in Sweden

The spinoff Lucero emerged a year ago as a joint effort between the Soft Matter Lab, the Biological Physics Group and the Chalmers School of Entrepreneurship. The idea of providing a non-invasive micromanipulation platform recently received initial support from the European Research Council (Proof of Concept) and Chalmers Ventures. Lucero has now been nominated for “Best HealthTech Startup” in the Swedish national final of the prestigious Nordic Startup Awards. National winners are partially determined by public vote and will go on to compete against the winners from Iceland, Finland, Norway, and Denmark in the Nordic Final.

The public voting period is now open and the winner of each category will be announced on November 26th.

To vote, click here.

“The first prototype is on its way and we hope to start the initial tests with biological samples pretty soon, all thanks to the support from Chalmers Ventures and Prof. Giovanni Volpe.” Alejandro Diaz, co-founder of Lucero.

Lucero is joined by four other up-and-coming Swedish startups in the HealthTech category, including Spermosens, tendo, Flow Neuroscience, and Deversify.

Other categories include: Startup of the Year, Best Newcomer, Founder of the Year, Investor of the Year, Best Co-working Space, Best Accelerator/Incubator Program, Ecosystem Hero of the Year, Best Virtual Teamwork Solution, People’s Choice, and Best Climate Impact Startup.

The Nordic Startup Awards is part of the Global Startup Awards, which is a large startup competition that aims to recognize and connect entrepreneurs, investors, accelerator/incubator programs, and government initiatives from all around the world.

Follow Lucero’s updates on Lucerobio.com/, LinkedIn, and Instagram.

Links:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/lucero/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lucero_bio/
Lucerobio: https://www.lucerobio.com/

Diagnosis of a genetic disease improves with machine learning, a summary in Swedish published in Fysikaktuellt

Neural networks consist of a series of connected layers of neurons, whose connection weights are adjusted to learn how to determine the diagnosis from the input data.

A summary in Swedish of our previously published article “Virtual genetic diagnosis for familial hypercholesterolemia powered by machine learning” has been published in Fysikaktuellt, the journal of the Swedish Physical Society (Svenska fysikersamfundet).

Article: “Diagnostisering av sjukdomar förbättras med maskininlärning”, Saga Helgadottir, Giovanni Volpe and Stefano Romeo (in Swedish)

Original article: Virtual genetic diagnosis for familial hypercholesterolemia powered by machine learning

Press release: 
Algoritm lär sig diagnostisera genetisk sjukdom (in Swedish)
An algorithm that learns to diagnose genetic disease (in English)

Career Seminar by OSA Ambassador Aura Higuera Rodriguez, 6 October 2020

Aura Higuera, Technical Account Manager PIC technology and Optical Society Ambassador

The OSA Chapter of Gothenburg together with the Association of Graduate Students in Physics (FFF) will organise an online career talk by Aura Higuera Rodriguez, OSA ambassador and Technical Account Manager at Synopsys Photonic Solutions. The seminar will take place online via Zoom on Tuesday 6th of October at 5 pm.

Aura completed her PhD at Eindhoven University of Technology in the photonic integration group. Afterwards, she worked at the Photonic Integration Technology Center as JePPIX Coordinator and Application Support and since January 2019 she joined Synopsys Photonic Solutions as Technical Account Manager. More about Aura on the OSA website .

Aura is among the OSA Ambassadors 2020 and her talk will focus on Career Development and Emotional Intelligence. The seminar is open to all members of the University of Gothenburg and Chalmers University of Technology via registration using the institutional email.

The seminar will be held on Zoom and the link will be available one hour before the start. To attend the talk, please register on https://tinyurl.com/aura-OSA-FFF.   For information or questions you can contact OSA-GU at osasc.gu@gmail.com or FFF at fff@lists.chalmers.se.

Registration:  https://tinyurl.com/aura-OSA-FFF
Place: Zoom (online)
Date: 6 October 2020
Time: 17:00 CET

New OSA chapter established at Gothenburg University!

Screenshot of the GU-OSA Student Chapter kick-off meeting, autumn semester 2020.

A new student chapter of the Optical Society of America (OSA) has been established at the Physics Department of Gothenburg University!

The founding members of the GU-OSA student chapter are students from the Soft Matter Lab, the Biophysics Group, and Optical Levitation Group, all part of the Physics Department of Gothenburg University. The chapter activity started on the autumn semester of 2020 with the online kick-off meeting, where the future plans and activities of the GU-OSA chapter were discussed.

The Optical Society of America (OSA) supports outreach and networking through the student chapters. So far, there are over 370 Student Chapter across the world organising events such as seminars, colloquiums, and outreach activities focused on increasing awareness of the importance of optics in our daily life and society.

To keep you updated on the GU-OSA student chapter activities, follow us on social media:
Facebook: OSA-GU Student chapter
Instagram: osasc.gu

or contact us via email: osasc.gu@gmail.com

Presentation by F. Schmidt at the Gothenburg Nanophotonic Symposium, 26 Mar 2019

Gothenburg Nanophotonic Symposium 2019

The first symposium on the topic of Nanophotonics brings together researchers from physics and chemistry departments in Gothenburg to present their work and share ideas.

Organised by Dr. R. Verre from the Bionanophotonic group at Chalmers University of Technology seven different groups will be present among which F. Schmidt will represent our Softmatter division of Gothenburg University.

The symposium will take place on the 26th of March 2019 at Kollektorn in MC2, Chalmers Campus. Everybody is welcome to attend!

Giovanni Volpe on the Panel on the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physics, Stockholm, 7 Dec 2018

Panel on the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physics
Friday, December 7, 15:00 – 18:00
Oscar Klein hall, Albanova, Roslagstullsbacken 21, Stockholm

Albanova, Stockholm’s center for Physics, Astronomy and Biotechnology cordially organizes a panel discussion about this year’s Nobel Prize in Physics, followed by a social gathering with drinks and snacks.

Panel Members:
Felix Ritort, University of Barcelona
Cord Arnold, Lunds University
Giovanni Volpe, Göteborg University
Valdas Pasiskevicius, KTH Royal Institute of Technology

Moderator:
Eva Lindroth, Stockholms University

https://www.fysik.su.se/om-oss/evenemang/the-2018-nobel-prize-in-physics-1.415146

Here is the direct videolink:
http://video.albanova.se/ALBANOVA20181207/video.mp4  (817MB)

The event web-page is at:
http://video.albanova.se/arc2018_32.html