Projects

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Atomic thin membranes for water and ion transport. University of Antwerp

Erik Neyts
Condensed Matter Theory, Plasma Lab for Applications in Sustainability and Medicine - Antwerp (PLASMANT)
Membranes are used for different separation processes with applications in areas as diverse as water desalination, gas separation, energy technologies, microfluidics and medicine. Due to its atomic thickness and its exceptional mechanical properties, graphene and related materials have opened up new possibilities in membrane technologies. Such membranes will be investigated for water and hydrogen transport, ion sieving and hydrogen isotope ...

Spectroscopic identification of defects in materials for perovskite-based hybrid solar cells. University of Antwerp

Etienne Goovaerts
Biophysics and Biomedical Physics, Nanostructured and organic optical and electronic materials (NANOrOPT)
Organometal trihalide perovskite solar cells have in the few years since their first introduction (in 2009) demonstrated very high power conversion efficiencies, up to 21% with potential for further increase. It is announced to become a game changer in the field of thin film photovoltaics, but this will critically depend on avoiding defect formation in the perovskite layer as well as at the interfaces with adjacent layers. The defects act as ...

Transition metal dichalcogenides as unique 2D platform for collective quantum behavior. University of Antwerp

Milorad Milosevic
Condensed Matter Theory
Two-dimensional transition metal dichalcogenides (2D-TMDs) are atomically-thin materials at the forefront of research, owing to their special electronic and optical properties, their tunability by electric gating and mechanical strain, and easy heterostructuring. It is much less explored that they also exhibit a wealth of collective quantum phases, characterized by a collective behavior of the electrons that is entirely different from their ...

Single-cell biomechanics: photoacoustic and photothermal approaches (OptoCellMech) KU Leuven

Christ Glorieux
Soft Matter and Biophysics

Cells, as functional units of any living tissue, are considered as the building blocks of life. They constantly generate, sustain, and respond to mechanical forces when interacting with their microenvironment, during tissue development and wounding healing. Of fundamental importance in the field is the ability to quantify biomechanics at single cell level. Acoustic waves travel through different materials at specific sound velocities and ...

Three-dimensional atomic modelling of functional nanocrystalline structures from a single viewing direction. University of Antwerp

Sandra Van Aert
Electron microscopy for materials research (EMAT)
The aim of this project is to retrieve the 3D atomic structure of nanocrystals from transmission electron microscopy (TEM) images acquired along a single viewing direction. This goal is extremely challenging but can be considered as a major breakthrough to investigate materials that degrade or deform during the acquisition of images along different viewing directions, such as in electron tomography. So far, 3D imaging at the atomic scale was ...

SUPramolecular control of electronic propERties of a GRAphene platform for personalized Medicine (SUPERGRAM) Ghent University

Richard Hoogenboom
Department of Organic and Macromolecular Chemistry

This project aims at developing a highly sensitive sensing platform for early detection of sepsis. To

push the boundaries of sensitivity towards recognition of single biomarker binding events, noncovalent

supramolecular modification of a graphene sensing platform with aaptamer receptors will

be developed. The perfection of graphene minimizes background noise while non-covalent

modification is required to not disturb ...

Diamond NV color center spin resonance magnetometers: from fundamentals to advanced operation principles. Hasselt University

Milos NESLADEK
Materials Physics
The aim of this project is to develop novel generation of ultrasensitive magnetometers based on quantum detection principles employing the photocurrent detected magnetic resonance (PDMR) using NV color centers in diamond, a method at which development I have been strongly involved. The quantum detection principles offer dramatic improvements in the sensitivity compared to the Giant Magneto Resistance sensors or Silicon Hall probes. The current ...

Design of opto-electronic properties in two dimensional materials by enhanced flexoelectric coupling. University of Antwerp

Francois Peeters
Condensed Matter Theory
Electromechanical effects, such as piezo- and flexoelectricity, are a consequence of the coupling of an applied electric field to the strain and the strain gradient, respectively. These effects are expected to be strongly enhanced in two dimensional materials (2D), first, due to the reduction in lattice symmetries in the 2D limit, and second, due to the superior elastic properties, allowing strains even up to 10% in some cases. Furthermore, 2D ...

Creating structural and physico-chemical control to enhance properties of hybrid periodic mesoporous metal phophonates. University of Antwerp

Vera Meynen
Laboratory of adsorption and catalysis (LADCA)
Hybrid organic-inorganic materials add organic functionality to inorganic material properties. Attention has shifted from silica based materials towards non-silica hybrid materials. Although a lot of progress has been achieved in surface grafting of organic functional layers, materials with framework incorporated organic groups can induce specific properties not achievable by surface functionalization. Tremendous progress has been reported on ...