An international team of researchers, including members of nanoGUNE's Nanooptics group, publish in “Science Advances” the grounds for the realization of nanodevices that, based on the manipulation of light at the nanoscale, promise the development of extraordinarily sensitive biosensors. The researchers also designed gold nanoantennas that allow obtaining extremely small (600.000 times smaller than the size of a grain of sugar) and bright focal spots. This achievement opens new avenues for the detection and control of single molecules, such as glucose, and atmospheric contaminants.

A multidisciplinary group of research teams, working in the framework of FET OPEN Project SPRING (www.springfetopen.eu), report that certain stripes of graphene called graphene nanoribbons (GNRs) acquire the anomalous topological state of matter when narrowed down to just a few nanometers in width. The research has been recently published in Nature Communications. 

An international team, including the leader of the Nanooptics group at nanoGUNE, Rainer Hillenbrand, discusses in ‘Nature’  the state-of-the-art and opportunities for controlling the propagation of nanolight (in form of polaritons) in van der Waals materials with the help of classical refractive optics concepts, meta-optics and moire engineering.

Four international experts, including the leader of the Nanooptics group at nanoGUNE Rainer Hillenbrand, analyze in ‘Nature Photonics’ the terahertz scanning probe microscopy techniques that achieve spatial resolution on the scale of micrometres to ångströms, with particular emphasis on their overarching approaches and underlying probing mechanisms, and they forecast the next steps in the field.

An international team of researchers, including members of nanoGUNE's Nanooptics group, unveils in ‘Nature Communications’ fundamental aspects of nanolight refraction in highly anisotropic media. The researchers also report the design of a new planar nanolens 1000 times smaller than the thickness of a human hair, which enables control of nanolight propagation, laying the groundwork for the development of photonic nanotechnologies with exciting possibilities.

La Agencia Estatal de Investigación otorga sus sellos de excelencia “Severo Ochoa” y “Maria de Maeztu” a un total de siete centros y seis unidades de investigación que destacan por el impacto y relevancia internacional de sus resultados. NanoGUNE ha renovado su distinción “Maria de Maeztu” y contará con una financiación de 500.000 euros anuales durante los próximos cuatro años.

Researchers from the Nanodevices Group at CIC nanoGUNE demonstrate that they can control the polarization direction of a spin current without having to apply a magnetic field, which could aid in implementing energy-efficient spintronics devices. The work has been published in Physical Review Letters.

NanoGUNE has registered as a member of a new international platform: The Innovation Network for Advanced Materials (INAM).

The European Patent Office (EPO) has nominated former nanoGUNE researcher Marco Donolato as finalist in the "Research" category of the European Inventor Award 2021 for its invention “Magnetic nanoparticles to diagnose disease”, a patent registered in collaboration with nanoGUNE Ikerbasque Research Professor Paolo Vavassori and Professor Mikkel Fougt-Hansen, from Technical University of Denmark (DTU). The invention led to the creation of a novel testing device which detects infectious diseases within minutes, enabling medical staff to begin treatment immediately and potentially saving millions of lives in countries struggling with diseases such as dengue fever.

Mathias Charconnet, early stage researcher of the Nanoengineering Group at nanoGUNE, has defended his PhD thesis Today at the University of the Basque Country.