Researchers from CIC nanoGUNE BRTA (San Sebastian, Spain), in collaboration with the Donostia International Physics Center (San Sebastián, Spain) and the University of Oviedo (Spain) employed a spectroscopic nanoimaging technique to study how infrared nanolight - in form of phonon polaritons - and molecular vibrations interact with each other. The images reveal that vibrational strong coupling can be achieved, which is a phenomenon that recently attracts wide attention for its potential use to control fundamental physical and chemical material properties. The result could lead the development of a novel platform for on-chip chemical identification of tiny amounts of molecules and for studying fundamental aspects of strong coupling phenomena on the nanometer scale. The work has been published in Nature Photonics (DOI: 10.1038/s41566-020-00725-3).

The Donostia-based centers CIC nanoGUNE and the AEG Professional Innovation School are working together to produce textile garments using sustainable materials.

Three of CIC nanoGUNE’s research projects have been selected in the European FET Open (Future and Emerging Technologies) call. FET Open initiatives aim to strengthen major, high-risk, scientific and technical research projects carried out in collaboration. They are projects linked to the creation of new groundbreaking technologies.  

The nanoGUNE Theory group led by Emilio Artacho is focused on the European project ESC2RAD to better understand the damage of solar and cosmic radiation on astronauts, spacecrafts and solar panels of satellites.

The researcher in CIC nanoGUNE’s Self-Assembly Group Maider Rekondo-Salsamendi has received the Youth Entrepreneurship Scholarship for the project entitled Zelulosa zuntzak elektrospinning bidez (Electrospun Cellulose Fibers).

NanoGUNE has joined the Technological Vouchers program launched by Fomento San Sebastián with three vouchers.

CIC nanoGUNE and the Astilleros Balenciaga shipyard have joined forces to establish that the heat-based forming process applied to marine-grade steel, used to build medium-sized vessels, does not exert a negative effect on the microstructure of the material.

NanoGUNE's Theory group, led by Ikerbasque Professor Emilio Artacho, is contributing to the development of a new open-source modular software development paradigm called Electronic Structure Library (ESL), promoted by CECAM (the European Centre for Atomic and Molecular Calculations).

Equality is a cross-cutting issue that must be worked out from many different fields and should be addressed from different perspectives. NanoGUNE has made the first steps to work consciously and systematically on the issue of gender equality, developing a diagnosis of the situation in a report and also is working on the development of the first Gender-Equality Plan.

The Nanoengineering Group at nanoGUNE has developed a new technology that allows for non-invasive and continuous monitoring of physiological risks of babies during labour in real time. The technology helps obstetricians take fast decisions, and hence, reduce the worldwide increasing number of cesareans.