The fact that the properties of materials vary on the nanoscale opens up endless applications that are beginning to be part of our daily lives. These are concepts that may escape our understanding but which have been handled at nanoGUNE on a daily basis for the last five years. Scientific work which the students, teachers, engineers, doctors, architects, economists, retirees, housewives, etc. who came to nanoGUNE on its 5th year anniversary had the chance to get to know first-hand with the help of the center’s researchers.

Researchers from the nanoscience research center CIC nanoGUNE, the Freie Universität Berlin and Neaspec company employ nano-FTIR spectroscopy for label-free chemical and structural imaging of proteins with nanoscale spatial resolution and with sensitivity to single protein complexes of less than one attogram (10-18 gram). The work has been published recently in Nature Communications. (I. Amenabar et al., Nature Communications, 2013, DOI:10.1038/ncomms3890)

Repsol and the Centre for Industrial Technological Development (CDTI in its Spanish initials), have signed an agreement with Graphenea, nanoGUNE’s first start-up company, through which both will invest jointly a million euros in the share capital of the technological company. CDTI is a body dependent on the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness of the Spanish Government.

The researcher Jose Ignacio Pascual of nanoGUNE, together with researchers of the Free University of Berlin, has developed a method to manipulate magnetism in atoms. This research makes it possible to drive forward the exploration of new methods of information storage and computation on an atomic scale. The work has been published recently in the prestigious journal Nature Physics.

nanoGUNE’s researcher Alexey Nikitin, in collaboration with researchers from the Imperial College (London) and the University of Zaragoza (Spain), has participated as a “guest editor” in the Special Issue on Graphene Nanophotonics published by Journal of Optics. The Special Issue focuses on the emerging Graphene nanophotonics research area, where topics on nanophotonics and the several extraordinary properties of graphene are combined.

A team of researchers from different research centers and institutions, including nanoGUNE, has shown the physical mechanism underlying the ability to control the polarization of light exploiting the excitation of collective oscillations of conduction electrons in nanosize magnetic disks. The research was recently published in Physical Review Letters.

On Monday 17 June, nanoGUNE’s pre-doctoral researcher Simon Poly got his Doctor Degree at the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) with a thesis entitled “molecular toxicity of nanomaterials”.

On Friday 27 September, nanoGUNE’s pre-doctoral researcher Olatz Idigoras received her doctoral Degree at the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) with a thesis entitled “Magnetization reversal behavior of ferromagnetic thin films and nano-structures”

NanoGune’s Nanobiomechanics Group led by Raúl Pérez-Jimenez is studying the evolution of proteins dating back to the origin of life, the effects that mechanical forces can have on them, and protein involvement in certain diseases

nanoGUNE’s Nanoimaging Group, led by José Ignacio Pascual, is studying matter on an atomic scale. To do this, it has three remarkable microscopes, one in each laboratory, and which are capable of ‘seeing’ and moving atoms and molecules.