You received this e-newsletter because, at some point, you shared your email address with the Brazilian Materials Research Society. We have never provided nor will provide your data to other individuals or legal entities. However, if you wish to leave this list and, in this way, stop receiving the B-MRS Newsletter, please, click here. Newsletter of the Brazilian Materials Research Society Special Issue Report of the XX B-MRS Meeting Foz do Iguaçu – 25 to 29 of September, 2022

In numbers More than 1,100 participants. 60% men, 40% women. 41.5% professionals, 42.5% graduate students, 11% undergraduate students and 5% exhibitors. 29 countries in America, Europe, Asia, Africa and Oceania. 23 Brazilian states, covering the 5 regions of the country. About 1,200 works effectively presented within 22 symposia: more than 340 oral presentations, 750 posters and 100 invited lectures. 27 students´contributions awarded. Up to 13 rooms in simultaneous sessions. 7 plenary lectures in addition to the memorial lecture. 3 technical lectures by exhibitors. 1 pre-event tutorial. 22 sponsors – exhibitors. Event report The traditional account of the event, with some files of the presentations and photos. Access the report here. List of awarded students The works and authors that received the awards from B-MRS, ACS and RSC for the best contributions presented by students at the event. Access the list and the photo album here. XXI B-MRS Meeting: call for symposium proposals The XXI B-MRS Meeting will be held in Maceió from October 1st to 5th, 2023, coordinated by UFAL professors Carlos Jacinto da Silva and Mário Roberto Meneghetti. The call for symposium proposals and the nomination of plenary speakers for the event are now open. Know more.   CERTIFICATES. The XX B-MRS Meeting participation and presentation certificates are available in the event system: https://www.eventweb.com.br/xxsbpmat/home-event/. EVENT PHOTOS. The main photos of the event (sessions, party, ceremonies, tributes), taken by the official photographer, for you to look at or download, organized by day, are available at Google Drive. Follow us on social media

The call for symposium proposals to compose the XXI B-MRS Meeting is open until December 3rd this year. The event will be held from October 1st to 5th, 2023 in Maceió (Alagoas, Brazil), chaired by Professors Carlos Jacinto da Silva and Mario Roberto Meneghetti, from the Federal University of Alagoas (UFAL).

Proposals can be submitted by teams of researchers (Ph.D.), preferably of international composition, wishing to organize a symposium within the event on a research topic in the field of Materials Science and Technology – from the design, synthesis and characterization of materials to their applications in the most diverse segments. The list of approved final symposia will be published on December 16 this year.

To submit a symposium proposal, simply fill out, in English, the online form available at http://sbpmat.org.br/proposed_symposium/ .

In addition, the event’s organizing committee invites the community to send suggestions of plenary speakers (internationally renowned scientists who can give a motivational lecture on advances made over time in a particular research topic, as well as the challenges and perspectives for the future). The plenary lectures should interest a wide audience, with different levels of training and thematic specialties.

Suggestions for the plenary lectures must be submitted by November 20th of this year through this Google form.

XXI B-MRS Meeting website: https://www.sbpmat.org.br/21encontro/ .

Every year, at the end of the meeting of the Brazilian Materials Research Society, the next year’s event is announced: its date, chairs and, most importantly, the city where it will be held. However, with Foz do Iguaçu, one of the most beautiful destinations in the world, things happened differently. The announcement was made in September 2019, but the event only took place three years later. The blame for the delay was, of course, the pandemic. In 2020, the meeting was postponed. In 2021, it was carried out in an online format, always under the coordination of Professor Gustavo Dalpian (UFABC), who skillfully dealt with the challenges of a difficult period. Finally, in September 2021, at the end of the online meeting, Professors Lucimara Stolz Roman (UFPR) and Marcela Mohallem Oliveira (UTFPR), were presented as the chairladies of the XX B-MRS Meeting, and announced what many expected: the event would be held in Foz do Iguaçu, the following year.

This is how, after three years without face-to-face meetings, around 1,100 people from the five continents of the planet and the five regions of Brazil gathered in Foz do Iguaçu from September 25 to 29, 2022. “The twentieth meeting of B-MRS was very important for the materials community to meet in person again after the Covid-19 pandemic”, said Professor Lucimara. “The joy of the people, the students, especially those who were attending a face-to-face conference for the first time, was contagious”, expressed the chairlady.

Along that week, human warmth made up for the cold weather which was unusual for the season. And the event’s venue, the Rafain hotel’s convention center, perfectly accommodated the participants, allowing them to spend the whole day there without being exposed to the rain, and providing interactions, not only in the presentation rooms, but also in the large space that became an exclusive restaurant for the attendees, and in the wide corridor with tables and chairs that were always occupied by groups of researchers and students. Adjacent to the hotel’s garden, the corridor welcomed participants every morning to the sound of the song of several Atlantic Forest birds. Another environment of many exchanges was the space that comfortably contained the secretary, the 22 exhibitors’ stands, the coffee break tables and the posters. There, participants could circulate freely, satisfying their curiosity about the products and services for materials research that were exhibited or demonstrated in the stands, or exchanging scientific ideas with the posters´presenters.

“This exciting return to a face-to-face meeting with many participants was made possible not only by the fact that science won the battle of Covid, but also by the strength and resilience of our interdisciplinary community, which came to the event despite all the difficulties we face at the moment in the country”, said professor Mônica Cotta (Unicamp), B-MRS President.

And it is worth mentioning: the abundant face-to-face exchanges coexisted with virtual exchanges throughout the event. Hundreds of stories and posts from participants bubbled up on social media, extending the reach of face-to-face moments.

 

Emotions in the opening session

On Sunday, September 25, around 7:30 pm, around 900 people occupied the Amazônia room at the Rafain convention center. Number above expectations: several had to stand in the back of the room. The desire to participate was strong! “Looking at that event room with hundreds of people in the audience was so exciting for me, I had a unique feeling of happiness to have participated in this organization after the pandemic and to see that we were able to structure ourselves, to return to our normal”, said chairlady Lucimara.

We were in the twentieth edition of the B-MRS annual event, but it was the first time that gender parity was seen at the opening table. There were three women at the table, and in the leadership: the two chairs of the event and the B-MRS President. Besides them, Professors Rodrigo Martins (NOVA, Portugal) as president of the International Union of Materials Research Societies (IUMRS), Guillermo Solórzano (PUC-Rio) as leader of the creation of B-MRS and first President of the society, and Roberto Faria (IFSC-USP), honored with the Joaquim da Costa Ribeiro Memorial Lecture – a B-MRS distinction for researchers of the community with a long trajectory and solid contributions.

In her speech, the B-MRS President told a story that happened in the 1990s that reinforces the importance of representativeness in workplaces. Chairlady Lucimara, who was a student at the time, was at Unicamp participating in an event when she visited a laboratory coordinated by Mônica, who was starting her career as a research professor at the Institute of Physics Gleb Wataghin (IFGW). The young Lucimara was surprised to see, for the first time, a woman coordinating a lab of experimental physics, which made her think that a career in this area would be possible. Today, Lucimara coordinates a productive research group on physics of materials at UFPR, and Mônica is the director of the IFGW. At the end of her speech, the president took the opportunity to present and launch the new visual identity of B-MRS, developed to celebrate the society’s 21 years, conveying the strength, excellence, enthusiasm, cohesion and diversity of the Brazilian materials research community.

In her presentation, Professor Lucimara called attention to the names of the rooms where the symposia would take place in the coming days: Rio de Janeiro, Foz do Iguaçu, Recife, Florianópolis, Natal, Guarujá, Ouro Preto, Gramado, Campos do Jordão, João Pessoa, Campinas, and Balneário Camboriú. For those who had not yet discovered the criteria behind the choice, she revealed that these were the names of the cities in which B-MRS meetings have already been held over the 20 editions. And “Amazônia”, the name of room for the plenary sessions? “The name of this room refers to the concern with sustainability that our scientific community has and needs to have”, she explained.

Then, in an presentation illustrated with many documents, Professor Solórzano told the story of the origins of B-MRS, emphasizing that the society was born with a proposal of interdisciplinarity and integration with the international scientific community. “In the first B-MRS Meeting we had 400 participants from 18 countries”, highlighted the founding partner.

Watch Guillermo Solórzano’s presentation:

• Learn more about the creation of B-MRS.

Finally, Professor Gregório Faria (IFSC-USP) took the stage to introduce none other than his father, Professor Roberto Mendonça Faria, the main honoree of the night, who was president of B-MRS from 2012 to 2015. “It’s not easy for me talk about the Professor, the father, the grandfather”, said Gregório, moved, in the year that Professor Roberto turned 70 years old. “Something that makes me very proud is the way his peers treat him, which has to do with the fact that he always thinks about the community first,” said the son.

• See our interview with Prof Faria, held in February 2016.

In his presentation, following the characteristic approach of the memorial lectures, of recovering the memory of the Brazilian materials research, the honoree spoke about groups that participated in the beginnings of polymers research in Brazil: the Bernhard Gross Polymer Group (IFSC-USP), which Faria has been a part of since the 1970s when it was called Electrets Group, and two large national networks in the area of polymeric and organic materials, of which he was coordinator, the Multidisciplinary Institute of Polymeric Materials of the Millennium from 2002 and the National Institute of Organic Electronics since 2009.

During the lecture, Faria enthusiastically explained the main results achieved by these groups, which reflected the evolution of the area, from the study of insulating polymers and their application in the electret microphone, to research on electronic polymers and their use in electronic devices such as OLEDs and solar cells.

Watch Roberto Faria’s presentation:

 

From 8:00 pm on, the participants fraternized in a great opening cocktail, served in the convention center, where there was no lack of hugs, laughter, conversation… in short, the joy of a face-to-face reunion!

 

High academic and social impact science in plenary sessions

The technical program began, once again, before the opening, on Sunday afternoon, with around 120 participants in the traditional “Young Researchers’ School”, a tutorial for young researchers on how to do high-impact science, from the initial idea (always audacious) to the difusion of the article on social networks, without forgetting the writing of the paper and the back and forth of the publication process. This edition of the tutorial also featured the novelty of advices for postdocs on how to continue their scientific career. The tutorial was given by Professor Valtencir Zucolotto (IFSC-USP), who is editor of the Nanomedicine and Nanotoxicology Book Series (Springer-Nature) and the journal Frontiers in Sensors/Biosensors (Frontiers), and by Daniel Staemmler, Executive Publisher at Elsevier in the field of Materials Engineering. The tutorial is based on practical tips and examples on technical and behavioral aspects of scientific practice.

More examples of high (or very high) impact science came throughout the week in the plenary lectures of the event, given by world-renowned scientists, which led participants to imagine a more or less near future, lead by techniques, materials and devices increasingly intelligent, efficient and sustainable. Held in the Amazônia room, the plenary sessions had 400 to 600 people in the audience. “Our scientific program was, once again, strong and diverse, bringing experts from around the world to cover frontier science. It motivated us to pursue quality science in Brazil and to use the results to improve quality of life of our population”, said Mônica Cotta.

On Monday afternoon, Professor Christine Kranz showed the fantastic work of her group at the German University of Ulm (Einstein’s hometown). The group integrates different probe scanning techniques and adapts the instruments to study electrochemical processes while they are happening. The scientist, who is an associate editor of the journal Bioelectrochemistry (Elsevier), showed interesting results obtained with this instrumentation in the study of biofilms and antibacterial materials, catalysts for the production of hydrogen and new batteries.

On Tuesday morning, Professor Daniel Ugarte (Unicamp) received the José Arana Varela Award. The distinction has been granted annually by B-MRS, since last year, to an outstanding researcher from the Brazilian materials research community, who delivers one of the plenary lectures at the B-MRS Meeting. A world-renowned expert in electron microscopy, Ugarte has distinguished himself in the study of the properties of nanosystems since the beginning of his career, when he was on the cover of the journal Nature as the sole author of an article on fullerene nanoonions. This was the starting point for a series of publications in this and other high-impact journals, such as Science, Nature Nanotechnology, Nano Letters and Physical Review Letters. “He never gives up on his ideals of research excellence and academic integrity,” said Mônica Cotta, who introduced the Ugarte plenary lecture and presented him with the award. But Professor Ugarte’s contribution to the materials community went beyond the papers. In the 1990s, he conceived and set up an open, multi-user electron microscopy laboratory within the Brazilian National Synchrotron Light Laboratory (LNLS), in Campinas. “Daniel’s crazy idea worked extremely well, providing excellent microscopists to the world and forming the basis of what is now known as the National Nanotechnology Laboratory at CNPEM”, highlighted Cotta.

• See our interview with Daniel Ugarte, conducted in January 2019.

In the lecture, Ugarte spoke passionately about the historical evolution of transmission electron microscopy, which today provides, in addition to images, a lot of quantitative information, and its impact on the study of nanomaterials and nanosystems. The presentation did not lack moments of great emotion when the scientist shared his affection and admiration for people in the community, such as Ricardo Rodrigues, one of the LNLS developers, who died in 2020.

Watch Daniel Ugarte’s presentation:

“Through the awards given to professors Faria and Ugarte, the community was able to express once again its gratitude to the researchers who dedicate their lives to materials science in Brazil”, highlighted professor Lucimara. “We have to value our scientists in order to strengthen our community”, she added.

On Tuesday afternoon, the plenary showcased materials science working closely with industry in manufacturing and materials processing. The speaker was Professor Sanjay Sampath, from the State University of New York at Stony Brook (USA), who directs a National Science Foundation (NSF) thermal spray research center, with a large participation of companies. With great enthusiasm, he presented efforts to improve this technique, which can be used to deposit coatings, mainly refractory ceramics, on large surfaces of various materials, with an impact on industries such as automotive, aerospace, energy, construction and prostheses, among others. The scientist, who carries out both fundamental and applied research, showed that apparent limitations of the technique can be transformed, through scientific research, into possibilities for new applications.

On Wednesday morning, the plenary speaker was a well-known member of the community, the former president of B-MRS Osvaldo Novais de Oliveira Junior (IFSC-USP). The speaker posed a thought-provoking question: can machines generate knowledge? Then he showed that, if computers still cannot transform information into knowledge, they already help a lot, even in the area of materials research. The scientist presented several works that use artificial intelligence tools, mainly machine learning, to analyze large volumes of data in order to discover materials with certain properties or to find papers of interest. In other cases, machine learning tools, coupled with good sensors built with the help of materials technology, make it possible to diagnose diseases using cheap and portable devices. According to the speaker, the next challenge for machines to actually generate knowledge is to understand human language. Physicist with a doctorate in Electronic Engineering and a productive career in the field of materials, Professor Osvaldo began his research on natural language processing in the 1990s from his interest in tools for scientific writing support. Over time, the scientist increasingly connected this research line to Physics and materials, especially in the development of sensors for the healthcare area. “How to teaching natural languages to machines is a very interesting issue for frontier research”, said the researcher, encouraging young people to work in the area.

See the presentation by Osvaldo Novais de Oliveira Junior:

The Wednesday afternoon plenary was delivered by Natalie Stingelin, professor and director of the School of Materials Science and Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology (USA). The scientist showed that plastics, which currently have a strong negative impact on the environment, can be our allies to build a more sustainable world. For that, she said, it is necessary to develop more and better smart electronic plastics, which combine, on the one hand, the flexibility, lightness and easy processing of polymers and, on the other hand, the properties needed for the desired applications. In her charming talk, Professor Natalie, who directs the Center for Photonics and Organic Electronics at Georgia Tech, presented a material of this type developed in her laboratory from a very simple chemical process for applications where it is important to control the passage of light. The material, which is an organic-inorganic hybrid, can be used, for example, in smart windows that keep environments at mild temperatures, avoiding energy expenditure on air conditioning. In addition to the applications, the material offers interesting possibilities for carrying out experiments that can further advance Photonics.

After three days of intense scientific programming, from 8:30 am to 7:30 pm, it was time for the traditional Conference Party, whose motto this year was the 20th anniversary of the B-MRS Meeting. The party, exclusively for event participants, was held at Dreams Motor Park, a space that is a bar, restaurant, concert hall and motorcycle museum. Participants of all ages and different geographical origins filled the house and made an unforgettable party. While on stage a rock band played classics of all times, on the dance floor and at the tables the excitement and the joy only increased. “What a lively party we had! It was a moment of relaxation and celebration of life”, expressed Professor Lucimara. A highlight was the participation on stage of a researcher from the community, Raphaela de Oliveira, who performed “Mercedes Benz”, by Janis Joplin. At the end of the event, the doctoral student would once again be highlighted by receiving one of the awards for the best student work.

The next day, at 10:30 am, the last plenary session of the event began. Professor Pulickel M. Ajayan (Rice University, USA) spoke about the challenges of nanoscale engineering and the industrial scale-up of its processes, in order to produce increasingly smaller and more efficient devices. Co-founder and director of Rice’s Department of Materials Science and NanoEngineering, Ajayan has a very high impact production in the field, with an h= 209 index on Google Scholar. The scientist emphasized the difficulty of dealing with the interfaces of nanoblocks. “It’s not just about building a Lego,” he said.

In addition to these technical-scientific plenary sessions, the event offered, early in the morning of the first day, a lecture on research, development and innovation funding in Brazil. The speaker was Marcelo Bortolini, Director of Scientific and Technological Development at FINEP, an organization of the Brazilian federal government devoted to funding of science and technology in the country. Bortolini showed the instruments that FINEP has to support the entire chain that generates technological innovation, from basic research to the launch of a product on the market. The speaker presented the financing possibilities, both reimbursable (loan) and non-reimbursable (grant) that FINEP offers to universities, research institutes, entrepreneurs, startups and companies.

Watch Marcelo Bortolini’s presentation:

A vibrant, competent and active community

About 1,200 research works were presented, in oral and poster sessions, within the 22 thematic symposia that made up the XX B-MRS Meeting. Organized by teams of researchers from Brazil and abroad, the symposia covered a variety of materials (glassy, ferroic, magnetic, superconducting, electronic polymers, two-dimensional materials, thin films) and their applications in areas such as health, energy, photonics, electronics, and environment. The event also featured 3 technical lectures on advanced materials characterization techniques, offered by scientific instrumentation companies.

Among the symposia, old acquaintances appeared, such as the thirteenth edition of the Brazilian glass and electroceramics symposia, as well as novelties, such as the symposium dedicated to new materials and nanotechnology for agribusiness. “As it was the first time that a symposium addressed this topic at the event, the organizers were positively surprised, both by the interest shown by the public and by the quality of the scientific works”, said Professor Valtencir Zucolotto (IFSC-USP), who was one of the organizers.

Once again, the symposia were thematic forums for the presentation of advances in the synthesis, characterization and application of materials, as well as in the experimental and computational techniques that make these advances possible. Not least, the discussion of the results from questions to the presenters was always stimulated. “In all the presentations, the public asked the speakers interesting questions, raising the scientific level of the event”, commented João Coelho, professor at Universidade Nova de Lisboa (Portugal), one of the organizers of the symposium P, which addressed sustainable materials and technologies for sensors and electronics. “The oral presentations promoted, as expected, interesting technical-scientific discussions between the audience and the presenters”, highlighted professor José Antonio Eiras (UFSCar), co-organizer of the symposium I on ferrous and multiferroic materials.

Researchers of all training levels, from undergraduate students to professors, performed the presentations of the thematic symposia. In total, there were more than 340 oral presentations and more than 750 posters. In addition, there were almost 100 invited lectures by leading experts from Brazil and abroad.

While the presentations took place, the works that had applied for the student awards were evaluated. Committees set up by the organizers of each symposium classified the works following the criteria defined by the B-MRS award committee to, at the end of the event, define the list of winners of the Bernhard Gross Prize – a distinction granted by B-MRS to undergraduate, master’s or doctoral students who present the best oral and the best poster of each symposium. The award also involved Professors Ieda Garcia dos Santos (UFPB), B-MRS scientific director, Ivan Bechtold (UFSC), financial director of the society, and Maria Luiza Rocco Duarte Pereira (UFRJ). The trio was in charge of comparing the evaluations of all the finalists and choosing the best works from the entire event to receive the awards sponsored by journals from the American Chemical Society (ACS) and the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC), which consisted, respectively, of R$2,000 and vouchers of £200 for each winning work, in addition to certificates.

As a result of this process, the delivery of prizes took place at the end of the event, just before noon on Thursday. In front of an audience of a few hundred people, Professor Ieda called to the stage, one by one, the finalists of the Bernhard Gross Awards: 27 students of all educational levels. Subsequently, the winners of the nine ACS Publications Prizes were announced, whose certificates were presented at the ceremony by the deputy editor of the magazine  ACS Applied Nano Materials, T. Randall Lee, and the five RSC Prizes, presented by Natalie Stingelin, who is editor-in-chief of both the Journal of Materials Chemistry C and Materials Advances.

• View the list of student award winners.
• See the award ceremony album.

Also at the closing ceremony, the chairlady Lucimara thanked the participants, the sponsors of the awards, the evaluation committees, the sponsors of the event (companies, funding agencies, ICTs), and the B-MRS team.

And in this cycle that always starts again, the awaited moment of the announcement of the next B-MRS Meeting arrived. The event will be held for the first time in Maceió, capital of the state of Alagoas, and for the fifth time in the Northeast region, from 1st to October 5, 2023. Professor Carlos Jacinto da Silva (UFAL), chair of the meeting with Professor Mário Roberto Meneghetti (UFAL), took the floor to present the event’s location, the Cultural and Ruth Cardoso Exhibitions, located in a central area of Maceió, close to the beach and many hotels, restaurants and leisure facilities.

Watch the presentation of the XXI B-MRS Meeting:

At the end of the closing ceremony, there were again long, strong hugs. Gradually, the participants left the Amazônia room, probably with the satisfaction of having participated in a very productive scientific event and the desire to repeat the experience in Maceió. “At the event we saw a lively, pulsating society, with a new generation of competent researchers committed to the development of science”, highlighted chairlady Lucimara. “I’m already excited for the next meeting in Maceió!!!”, she concluded.

• See the XXI B-MRS Meeting website (Maceió, October 1st to 5th, 2023).
• View the event’s symposium call, which is open until December 3, 2022.

Photos: the album of the Student Awards and Prizes Ceremony is available here.

Bernhard Gross Award

(Established by B-MRS in honor of Bernhard Gross, a pioneer of Brazilian materials research. It distinguishes the best oral and poster contributions presented by students in each symposium) 

Symposium A – Poster. Gustavo Venâncio Bellucci. Development of curcumin-anchored hydroxyapatites.

Symposium A – Oral. Leonardo Francisco Gonçalves Dias. Evaluation of bisphosphonates adsorption on TiO2, HA and composite surfaces.

Symposium C – Poster. Caroline Eloisa Apolinário Botteon. Assessment of cytotoxicity of gold nanoparticles functionalized with Brazilian red propolis in 2D and 3D models of urological cancers.

Symposium C – Oral. Paulo Henrique Olivieri Jr. Cell-Surface Glycosaminoglycans Regulate the Cellular Uptake of Charged Polystyrene Nanoparticles.

Symposium E – Oral. Raphael F. Moral. Probing the Stacking Properties of Cesium Lead Halide Perovskite Nanoplates with SAXS.

Symposium F – Oral. Matheus F. F. das Neves. Aqueous conductive ink based on PEDOT nanoparticles without organic solvents, passivant agents or metallic residues.

Symposium G – Poster. Murillo Henrique de Matos Rodrigues. The Influence of the Magnetic Field and Nanoparticle Concentration on the Thin Film Colloidal Deposition Process of Magnetic Nanoparticles: The Search for High-Efficiency Hematite Photoanodes.

Symposium G – Oral. Rafael Lavagnolli Germscheidt. Water oxidation performance enhanced by electrochemically designed vacancies on Prussian blue catalyst.

Symposium H – Poster. Matheus Cavalcanti dos Santos Nunes. Thermoluminescence properties of Al2O3:C laser sintered ceramic under X-rays and beta irradiation.

Symposium H – Oral. Alexia Oliveira Silva. Thermoluminescence properties of alexandrite under beta, ultraviolet and X-ray irradiation.

Symposium J – Poster. Lucas Felipe Santos de Azeredo. Ferromagnets with minor magnetization loops that lie entirely and way outside the major hysteresis loop.

Symposium J – Oral. Allan Marciel Döring. The diffusion process of La, Fe and Si through the La(Fe,Si)13 phase – A Fick’s 1st law-based approach.

Symposium N – Oral. Mayara Carla Uvida. PMMA-silica coatings modified with calcium phosphates for bioactive corrosion protection of Ti6Al4V alloy.

Symposium P – Poster. Eduardo Fonseca Maia. Gold/Cooper and Silver/Cooper Mixed Nanoparticles Films on Silica Substrate: Materials With Potential Use in Optical Sensors.

Symposium P – Oral. Tomás Pinheiro. Paper-based, Green Laser-Induced Graphene for bioelectronic applications and electrochemical sensor production.

Symposium Q – Poster. Ana Carolina Cunha Serafim. Carbon dots obtained from two different agricultural residues.

Symposium R – Poster. Juliany Louise Hurbano Carvalho. Study of Self-Assembly Structures Based on Carbon Quantum Dots.

Symposium R – Oral. Ana Carolina Dalila Steil. PLA/PPy composite nanofibers by solution electrospinning for the development of electrochemical sensors.

Symposium S – Poster. Nicolli de Freitas. Simple, fast, and efficient electrochemical thinning of ultra-large MoS2 on gold surfaces.

Symposium S – Oral. Raphaela de Oliveira. Chlinoclore: probing water in an emergent naturally abundant 2D material.

Symposium T – Poster. Ezequiel Lorenzett. Electrostatic Charged Functional 3D Printed Materials.

Symposium T – Oral. Funsho Olaitan Kolawole. Nano-scratch and micro-scratch properties of CrN/DLC and DLC-W coatings.

Symposium U – Poster. Yan Araujo Santos da Campo. Elastomers and Chaos: an alternative approach to electromechanical coupling and its correlation with failure prediction.

Symposium U – Oral. Gustavo Scheid Prass. Processing and characterization of AISI 316L coating reinforced with Cu and CuO nanoparticles.

Symposium V – Poster. Thissiana da Cunha Fernandes. Determination of thermodynamic parameters for growth of lead-free piezoelectric single crystals from the melt.

Symposium V – Oral. Isabela Reis Lavagnini. In situ synchrotron X-ray diffraction of hydroxyapatite-zirconia composite during Conventional Sintering and Flash Sintering.

Symposium X – Oral. Yuri Ferreira da Silva. Effect of submerged liquid plasma treatment on the hygroscopicity of vegetable ivory microparticles.

ACS Publications Prizes

(Sponsored by journals of ACS Publications, a division of the American Chemical Society. Prizes for the best student contributions of all the event)

Symposium A – Poster. Gustavo Venâncio Bellucci. Development of curcumin-anchored hydroxyapatites.

Symposium G – Poster. Murillo Henrique de Matos Rodrigues. The Influence of the Magnetic Field and Nanoparticle Concentration on the Thin Film Colloidal Deposition Process of Magnetic Nanoparticles: The Search for High-Efficiency Hematite Photoanodes.

Symposium T – Poster. Ezequiel Lorenzett. Electrostatic Charged Functional 3D Printed Materials.

Symposium U – Poster. Yan Araujo Santos da Campo. Elastomers and Chaos: an alternative approach to electromechanical coupling and its correlation with failure prediction.

Symposium E – Oral. Raphael F. Moral. Probing the Stacking Properties of Cesium Lead Halide Perovskite Nanoplates with SAXS.

Symposium N – Oral. Mayara Carla Uvida. PMMA-silica coatings modified with calcium phosphates for bioactive corrosion protection of Ti6Al4V alloy.

Symposium P – Oral. Tomás Pinheiro. Paper-based, Green Laser-Induced Graphene for bioelectronic applications and electrochemical sensor production.

Symposium R – Oral. Ana Carolina Dalila Steil. PLA/PPy composite nanofibers by solution electrospinning for the development of electrochemical sensors.

Symposium S – Oral. Raphaela de Oliveira. Chlinoclore: probing water in an emergent naturally abundant 2D material.

RSC Prizes

(Sponsored by journals of the Royal Society of Chemistry. Prizes for the best student contributions of all the event)

Symposium H – Poster. Matheus Cavalcanti dos Santos Nunes. Thermoluminescence properties of Al2O3:C laser sintered ceramic under X-rays and beta irradiation.

Symposium S – Poster. Nicolli de Freitas. Simple, fast, and efficient electrochemical thinning of ultra-large MoS₂ on gold surfaces.

Symposium C – Oral. Paulo Henrique Olivieri Jr. Cell-Surface Glycosaminoglycans Regulate the Cellular Uptake of Charged Polystyrene Nanoparticles.

Symposium F – Oral. Matheus F. F. das Neves. Aqueous conductive ink based on PEDOT nanoparticles without organic solvents, passivant agents or metallic residues.

Symposium G – Oral. Rafael Lavagnolli Germscheidt. Water oxidation performance enhanced by electrochemically designed vacancies on Prussian blue catalyst.

 

Newsletter of the Brazilian Materials Research Society Year 9, issue 8. September 5th, 2022.

Featured paper Researchers at USP São Carlos developed a portable photoelectrochemical immunosensor that demonstrated high efficiency to detect a prostate cancer biomarker in blood samples. The main novelty of the work is the miniaturization of the technology, which was made possible by the development of a photocatalyst. The device is promising for the diagnosis of diseases within the point-of-care approach. (ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces cover paper). Know more. XX B-MRS Meeting Program. the program at a glance is available on the website. Venue. the “venue” tab of the event’s website contains information about reservations at the Rafain hotel and other nearby hotels Young Researchers School. A new edition of Prof. Valtencir Zucolotto (IFSC-USP) on writing and scientific publication of high-impact articles will be held on Sunday 25th, before the opening of the event. To participate, you must be registered for the XX B-MRS Meeting and register (at no extra cost) in the tutorial by accessing the registration system and clicking on the “Add/Edit activities” button. Children’s playroom. The event hotel will have a children’s playroom with monitors during the week of the event, with activities for children from 4 to 12 years old. Interested parties should contact secretaria@sbpmat.org.br. Conference party. The traditional B-MRS Meeting party, which this year celebrates the 20th edition of the event, will be held on the night of Wednesday, the 28th, at the Dreams Motor Show space with the band Scope, specialized in rock/pop from the 80s. Student awards. Prizes will only be awarded to winners who are present at the ceremony on the last day of the event. Registration. Online registration will remain open until the end of the event. During the event, it will also be possible to register at the secretariat. Memorial Lecture. Prof. Roberto Mendonça Faria (IFSC-USP). Plenary Speakers. Christine Kranz (Ulm University), Daniel Mario Ugarte (UNICAMP), Gustavo Rivas (Univ. Córdoba), Natalie Stingelin (Georgia Tech Univ.), Sanjay Sampath (State Univ. of New York at Stony Brook), Pulickel Ajayan (Rice Univ.). Support and sponsorship. 22 companies and startups have already confirmed sponsorship and participation in the exhibition of this edition of the event, which also has 42 institutional supporters among scientific journals, companies and other organizations. For more information, visit the event website. Reading tips – By using two-dimensional materials to trap a liquid, scientists create a way to study solid-liquid interfaces in the electron microscope, and in this way, they obtain the first images of atoms “swimming”. Technique opens possibilities in the study of chemical processes that are essential to the development of devices such as batteries and fuel cells. (Nature) Know more. – Scientists create the first hydrogel-based cartilage substitute. Stronger and more durable than natural cartilage, the material, which is inserted into a titanium base, could be implanted in knees with worn cartilage. (Advanced Functional Materials) Know more. – By combining perovskites and other materials, scientists make floating photoelectrochemical devices that produce fuels from water, CO2 and sunlight. Because they are lightweight and do not degrade with moisture, these “artificial leaves” could be installed in polluted waterways or oceans. (Nature) Know more. – In the International Year of Glass (IYOG2022), article and video from Physcis World magazine address the history of glass, which began about 3,500 years ago, and the importance of this transparent material in our society. Know more. Community Symposium celebrating 91 years of life of Prof. Yvonne Primerano Mascarenhas, a pioneer in Brazil of structural and molecular X-ray crystallography, will be held on September 16 at IFSC-USP with broadcast on YouTube. Information and registration, here. Advocacy – B-MRS supports a note against MP 1136/22, which mutilates the federal budget of ST&I for several years. The note denounces that the MP disrespects the independence of constitutional powers. Read the note. – B-MRS supports a manifesto that warns of the unprecedented threat to Education and Science in Brazil and urges people to vote with conscience and defend free elections and respect for the results of the election. Read the manifesto. – Letter from B-MRS to the president of CAPES expresses concern about the loss of access to the journals of the Royal Society of Chemistry on the CAPES Portal. Read the letter. Opportunities – Opportunity at IBM Research Brazil for a researcher with experience in computational materials science. The focus will be on the accelerated discovery of materials for capturing, separating and storing carbon. Know more. Events – Machine Learning School for Materials @Ilum. Hybrid event. 5th to 7th of September 2022. Website. – XVIII International Small Angle Scattering Conference. Online + Campinas, SP (Brazil). 11 to 16 September 2022. Website. – 18th International Conference on Plasma Surface Engineering (PSE 2022). Trade Fair Erfurt (Germany). September 12 to 15, 2022. Website. – Webinar: Strategies for Increasing the Efficiency of Organic Solar Cells. Online. September 15, 2022. Website. – Minicourse: Caracterization of nanostructures and organized systems. Online. September 22 to 23, 2022. Website. – XX B-MRS Meeting. Foz do Iguaçu (Brazil). 25th to 29th of September 2022. Website. – 22nd International Magnetic Measurement Workshop (IMMW22). Online. September 26 to 30, 2022. Website. – 7th Meeting on Self Assembly Structures in Solution and at Interfaces (AUTOORG 2022). Bento Gonçalves (RS). November 2nd to 4th, 2022. Website. – V Workshop de Química Inorgânica. Manaus (AM) + online. November 9 to 11, 2022. Website. – 11th International Conference of the African Materials Research Society (AMRS2022 ). Dakar (Senegal). December 12 to 15, 2022. Website. – 41st International Conference on Vacuum Ultraviolet and X-ray Physics (VUVX 2023). Campinas, sp). July 3rd to 7th, 2023. Website. Follow us on social media

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Using a set of carefully prepared and combined materials, Brazilian researchers have developed a portable photoelectrochemical immunosensor with potential for use in the early diagnosis of diseases. The device allows rapid and accurate detection of diseases such as cancer, even at an early stage. The immunosensor was tested, with very good results, in the detection of prostate-specific antigen (PSA), which is the most used marker to diagnose and monitor cases of prostate cancer from blood samples.

In a compact system, which fits in one hand, the device gathers all the elements necessary to carry out the diagnosis without needing laboratories nor specialized professionals. In this way, the device is part of the point-of-care testing paradigm, an expression that designates, in the health area, the possibility of performing medical tests at the time and place of the patient´s medical care.

“The technology we developed has the potential to facilitate cancer diagnoses and make it faster and more accurate, especially at the early stage. The method allows the detection of biomarkers at low concentration levels and in the doctor’s office”, says Thiago Serafim Martins, one of the corresponding authors of the article that reports this research and was featured on cover of ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces. Martins participated in this work during his doctorate, whose thesis was defended this year at the São Carlos Institute of Chemistry (IQSC-USP).

The challenge

Immunosensors form a class of detection devices whose operation is based on the interaction between antibodies and their antigens. In these biosensors, antibodies are immobilized on the surface of the detection platform so that, when they come into contact with their respective antigens, and only with them, a chemical reaction occurs – the one that, in the body, allows us to defend ourselves from pathogens.

At that moment, another component of the immunosensor comes into play, the transducer, which translates this immunochemical information into another type of signal that can be easily interpreted (usually an electrical current). When this translation is based on electrochemical reactions, the device is called an electrochemical immunosensor. And when the generation of electric current is encouraged by the action of light on a sensitive material, the immunosensor is said to be photoelectrochemical.

“Photoelectrochemical biosensors belong to a sensitive and low-cost analytical approach to detecting molecules of clinical and environmental interest”, says José Luiz Bott-Neto, postdoctoral fellow at the São Carlos Institute of Physics (IFSC-USP) and corresponding co-author of the paper. However, he explains, before this work, this technology required the use of large, high-power light sources, which made its use in portable devices unfeasible.

Faced with this limitation, the team from USP São Carlos set out to develop a photocatalyst (a nanomaterial capable of increasing the system’s ability to absorb light and transform it into electric current) that would allow the use of smaller light sources. The researchers started with two materials that, in addition to having photocatalyst properties, are non-toxic, inexpensive and easy to prepare: titanium dioxide (TiO2) and graphitic carbon nitride (gC3N4). Then, they inserted nickel atoms into the graphitic carbon nitride structure, forming the Ni-gC3N4 compound, and combined this material with titanium dioxide nanoparticles, resulting in the formation of the Ni-gC3N4/TiO2 composite. Finally, they treated the surface of the composite with aryl diazonium salt. “The latter acted as a signal amplifier at the same time that it made it possible to immobilize the antibodies on the nanoparticles”, says Bott-Neto. The photocatalyst was used to coat the carbon electrodes of the photoelectrochemical system.

The result

Always looking for simplicity and miniaturization, the authors assembled a prototype of the device with the photocatalysts, the anti-PSA antibodies immobilized on them, an electrical system and, as a light source, a 3-watt LED, in addition to parts produced through 3D printing. In performance tests, the photoelectrochemical immunosensor was able to detect PSA at different concentrations in human serum samples, and presented the lowest detection limit ever reported in the literature for devices of this type, according to the authors of the article. “The high sensitivity and selectivity of the immunosensor can be attributed to the heterojunction between Ni-gC3N4 and TiO2”, explains Bott-Neto.

The work makes a fundamental contribution to taking photoelectrochemical detection technology, which is characterized by low cost and high levels of sensitivity and selectivity, to applications that require portability, such as point-of-care tests.

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Paper reference: Photocatalysis of TiO2 Sensitized with Graphitic Carbon Nitride and Electrodeposited Aryl Diazonium on Screen-Printed Electrodes to Detect Prostate Specific Antigen under Visible Light. José L Bott-Neto, Thiago S Martins, Lorenzo A Buscaglia, Sergio A S Machado, and Osvaldo N Oliveira Jr. ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces 2022, 14, 19, 22114–22121. https://doi.org/10.1021/acsami.2c03106

Corresponding author contact: joseluiz.bott@gmail.com

Sorry, this entry is only available in Brazilian Portuguese.

 

Newsletter of the Brazilian Materials Research Society Year 9, issue 7. August 1st, 2022.

Featured paper Researchers from IFSC-USP and UNIFESP are co-authors of this review article on Langmuir and Langmuir-Blodgett films. In addition to addressing concepts and commenting on the promising applications of the films in molecular machines, organic electronics and tissue engineering, the authors report the history of these materials, including the contributions of two women: Agnes Pockels, an amateur and self-taught scientist whose discoveries were made in her kitchen sink, and Katherine Blodgett, who was the first woman to earn a doctorate in physics from the University of Cambridge and to be hired as a scientist at General Electric. Access the paper in Chemical Reviews: https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.chemrev.1c00754. A team from USP (IFSC and ICB-II) proposed a possible strategy for the treatment of Covid-19, based on the repositioning of a drug combined with the use of nanotechnology. The solution consists of encapsulating a drug, currently used to treat patients with multiple sclerosis, inside a polymeric nanocapsule capable of releasing the medication into cells infected with SARS-CoV-2. Tests with cells showed that the encapsulated drug has less toxicity than the free one and, at the same time, its antiviral activity against SARS-CoV-2 is almost 70 times higher than that of the drug without encapsulation. Access the article on ACS Applied Bio Materials: https://doi.org/10.1021/acsabm.2c00349. Looking for natural materials that can provide low-cost two-dimensional insulating layers, a team from UFMG, UFOP, Mackenzie, LNLS and UNICAMP investigated the structure and properties of clinochlore – an abundant lamellar mineral. The authors demonstrated that the presence of impurities between the lamellae affects the optoelectronic properties of the material in both its macroscopic and two-dimensional versions. The article points out the potential application of this material in nanodevices production. Access the paper on Applied Surface Science: https://doi.org/10.1021/acsabm.2c00349. Lives & Webinars A live held for the Brazilian National Science and Researcher Day (on July 8th) brought together three researchers from the Southeast, North and Northeast regions of the country who showed the importance of research in sustainable development. The recording of the panel is available at the B-MRS YouTube. Professor Hidembergue Ordozgoith from Frota (UFAM) showed how the development of new materials based on the sustainable use of Amazonian biodiversity can contribute to a new economic cycle in the North region, with an impact on segments such as food, agriculture and construction. Professor Simoni Margareti Plentz Meneghetti (Ufal) presented through several examples the fundamental importance of catalysts to make industrial processes more sustainable, to take advantage of renewable raw materials such as biomass, to enable the use of clean and renewable energy and even to recycle various materials. Researcher Cauê Ribeiro de Oliveira (EMBRAPA) has shown that developing fertilizers is, in fact, developing materials. In order to achieve the maximum possible efficiency and the necessary properties with the least negative environmental impact and reduced cost, it is necessary to modify the fertilizers with other materials and to use systems that allow them to be released gradually in a controlled manner. XX B-MRS Meeting Early registration period is open until August 10th. Program: the program at a glance is available on the website. Student awards: Prizes will only be awarded to winners who are present at the ceremony on the last day of the event. Venue: the “venue” tab of the event’s website contains information about reservations at the Rafain hotel and other nearby hotels. Memorial Lecture: Prof. Roberto Mendonça Faria (IFSC-USP). Plenary Speakers: Christine Kranz (Ulm University), Daniel Mario Ugarte (UNICAMP), Gustavo Rivas (Univ. Córdoba), Natalie Stingelin (Georgia Tech Univ.), Sanjay Sampath (State Univ. of New York at Stony Brook), Pulickel Ajayan (Rice Univ.), Stuart Parkin (Univ Martin-Luther de Halle-Wittemberg). Support and sponsorship: 20 companies have already confirmed sponsorship and participation in the exhibition of this edition of the event, which also has 40 institutinal supporters among journals, companies and other organizations. Entities interested in participating in the expo or in other forms of dissemination and support can contact Alexandre Alves at comercial@sbpmat.org.br. For more information and registration, visit the event website. Reading tips – Computational study shows superconducting behavior of two-dimensional material Mo2N at relatively high temperatures and ambient pressure (Nanoscale cover). Saiba mais. – Study with the participation of researchers from USP and Inpe shows that it is possible to control phonons by means of a magnetic field (Physical Review Letters). Know more. – Researchers manage to produce well-aligned boron nitride nanotube fibers, starting from the liquid crystal of this material. The advance opens up the possibility of applying these nanotubes, which are good electrical insulators (Nature Communications). Know more. – Video by researchers from CeRTEV (DEMa – UFSCar) with theatrical representation of the phenomenon of glass transition wins the second place in the international competition Glorious Glass Demo for the dissemination of science and technology of glass, promoted by ACerS. Know more and see the video. Opportunities – CNPq call for cooperative projects Brazil – Argentina in Nanotechnology. Applications until August 22nd. Brasil Link. Argentina Link. – Vacancy for researcher in the field of Organic Electronics and Bioelectronics at the University of Coimbra (Portugal). Applications until August 8th. Know more. – Vacancy at LNLS – CNPEM for researcher of the Jatobá do Sirius beamline (X-ray diffraction – PDF). Know more. – Vacancy at LNNano-CNPEM as a researcher in data science and nanostructure theory. Know more. – Researcher vacancy at LNNano-CNPEM in LT-STM applied to materials for quantum technologies.Know more. – Selection of post-doc and doctoral scholarships for FAPESP thematic project in the area of colloids at UNICAMP, UFABC, CNPEM and UFSCar. Applications until August 31st. Know more. Events – Course: Fundamentals of Transmission Electron Microscopy. IFGW-UNICAMP + online (to confirm). Second half of 2022. More information. – IUMRS-ICAM2021 + IMRC2022. Online + Cancun (Mexico). August 14th to 19th, 2022. Website. – Machine Learning School for Materials @Ilum. Hybrid event. September 5th to 7th, 2022. Website. – XVIII International Small Angle Scattering Conference. Online + Campinas, SP (Brazil). 11 to 16 September 2022. Website. – 18th International Conference on Plasma Surface Engineering (PSE 2022). Trade Fair Erfurt (Germany). September 12 to 15, 2022. Website. – XX B-MRS Meeting. Foz do Iguaçu (Brazil). 25th to 29th of September 2022. Website. – 22nd International Magnetic Measurement Workshop (IMMW22). Online. September 26 to 30, 2022. Website. – 7th Meeting on Self Assembly Structures in Solution and at Interfaces (AUTOORG 2022). Bento Gonçalves (RS). November 2nd to 4th, 2022. Website. – V Workshop de Química Inorgânica. Manaus (AM) + online. November 9th to 11th, 2022. Website. – 11th International Conference of the African Materials Research Society (AMRS2022 ). Dakar (Senegal). December 12 to 15, 2022. Website. – 41st International Conference on Vacuum Ultraviolet and X-ray Physics (VUVX 2023). Campinas (SP). 3rd to 7th of July 2023. Website. Follow us on social media

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Newsletter of the Brazilian Materials Research Society Year 9, issue 6. July 5th, 2022.

Featured paper A team of researchers from Brazilian institutions exfoliated two-dimensional layers of phlogopite (a mineral abundant in Brazil) and showed that this new insulating material is promising for composing ultrathin optoelectronic devices, replacing high-cost synthetic materials (2D Materials). Know more Lives & Webinars SBPMat will participate in the celebration of the Brazilian Science and Researchers Day, promoted by SBPC, with a panel discussion on materials for a more sustainable world. The event will be held on July 8 at 4:30 pm (São Paulo time) in the B-MRS channel on YouTube. More information coming soon on all B-MRS media. Members Prof. Luciana Kassab (Faculty of Technology of São Paulo / CEETEPS), a B-MRS member, was interviewed by the magazine of the former OSA (The Optical Society), which was renamed OPTICA, while Senior Member of the society. See the interview. XX B-MRS Meeting Submission of extended abstracts to apply for the student awards: open until August 1st. The extended abstracts template is available on the “submission” tab of the website. Prizes will only be awarded to winners who are present at the ceremony on the last day of the event. Final abstract notification: 11th of July. Accomodation. The “venue” tab of the event’s website contains information about reservations at the Rafain hotel and other nearby hotels. Memorial Lecture: Prof. Roberto Mendonça Faria (IFSC-USP). Plenary Speakers: Christine Kranz (Ulm University), Daniel Mario Ugarte (UNICAMP), Gustavo Rivas (Univ. Córdoba), Natalie Stingelin (Georgia Tech Univ.), Olle Inganas (Linkoping Univ.), Pulickel Ajayan (Rice Univ.), Stuart Parkin (Univ Martin-Luther de Halle-Wittemberg). Registration. Early registration until August 5th. Support and sponsorship: 17 companies have already confirmed sponsorship and participation in the exhibition of this edition of the event. 18 companies and journals support the meeting. Entities interested in participating in the expo or in other forms of dissemination and support can contact Alexandre Alves at comercial@sbpmat.org.br. For more information, extended abstract submission and registration, visit the event website. Opportunities – LNLS– CNPEM: researcher of the Jatobá beamline (X-ray diffraction – PDF) of the Sirius Brazilian synchrotron light source. Know more. – LNNano-CNPEM: researcher in data science and nanostructure theory. Know more. – LNNano-CNPEM: LT-STM applied to materials for quantum technologies. Know more. – Post-doc in perovskite solar cells at UNESP. Registration until July 15th. Know more. – Selection for post-doc and doctoral scholarships for a FAPESP thematic project in the area of colloids at UNICAMP, UFABC, CNPEM and UFSCar. Applications until August 31st. Know more. Events – Webinar “Bio-based polymers”. Online. July 5th at 3 pm. Organização: ACS Publications in partnership with SBPMat, ABPol and IUMRS. Free registration. – International Conference on the Science and Technology of Synthetic Metals (ICSM). Glasgow (Scotland). 17th to 22nd of July 2022. Website. – 4th Workshop on Coated Tools & Multifunctional Thin Films. Campinas, SP (Brazil). 20th to 23rd of July 2022. Website. – XII Course of the Rietveld Method. Fortaleza, CE (Brazil). 25th to 29th of July 2022. Website. – Course: Fundamentals of Transmission Electron Microscopy. IFGW-UNICAMP + online (to be confirmed). Second half of 2022. Learn more. – IUMRS-ICAM2021 + IMRC2022. Online + Cancun (Mexico). August 14th to 19th, 2022. Website. – Machine Learning School for Materials @Ilum. Hybrid event. 5th to 7th of September 2022. Website. – XVIII International Small Angle Scattering Conference. Online + Campinas, SP (Brazil). 11 to 16 September 2022. Website. – 18th International Conference on Plasma Surface Engineering (PSE 2022). Trade Fair Erfurt (Germany). September 12th to 15th, 2022. Website. – XX B-MRS Meeting. Foz do Iguaçu (Brazil). 25th to 29th of September 2022. Website. – 7th Meeting on Self Assembly Structures in Solution and at Interfaces (AUTOORG 2022). Bento Gonçalves (RS). 2 to 4 November 2022. Website. – 11th International Conference of the African Materials Research Society (AMRS2022 ). Dakar (Senegal). December 12 to 15, 2022. Website. – 41st International Conference on Vacuum Ultraviolet and X-ray Physics (VUVX 2023). Campinas, (SP). 3rd to 7th of July 2023. Website. Follow us on social media

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A team of researchers from Brazilian institutions took the first steps towards the use of phlogopite, a mineral abundant in Brazil, as a natural source of ultrathin insulating layers that could be used in optoelectronic devices of the future. “Our work presents the insertion of this natural mineral in materials research and its possible use in different areas of nanotechnology”, says scientist Alisson R. Cadore, corresponding author of the article recently published in the journal 2D Materials.

The work is part of the search for two-dimensional materials (one or a few atoms thick) at low cost. In this search, the scientific community has investigated the so-called “lamellar materials”, which are formed by stacked ultrathin layers, joined together by the so-called “van der Waals forces”. Because they are relatively weak, these physical forces allow the lamellae separation to be performed using several methods. One of the best-known examples of this group is graphite, which is the source of graphene. Another example is that of micas, a family of minerals that includes phlogopite, which had never been studied in its two-dimensional form before the work of the Brazilian team.

In this work, the researchers used macroscopic phlogopite crystals mined in Itabira (state of Minas Gerais, Brazil) to generate two-dimensional layers by mechanical exfoliation. This extremely simple technique gained fame for having led to the first successful production of graphene, which earned Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2010. In this method, a common adhesive tape is used to separate flakes from the material, by sticking them to the tape. The procedure is repeated until reaching the thinnest possible layer, the monolayer.

Using this method, the authors of the paper obtained monolayers and few-layers flakes of phlogopite. With them, they carried out a robust characterization that involved several experimental techniques in laboratories at Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie (UPM), at the National Laboratory of Synchrotron Light (LNLS) and at the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG). Some results were confirmed with computer simulations carried out by the authors of the Federal University of Lavras (UFLA).

“In this work, we theoretically and experimentally identified the chemical and structural composition of phlogopite and demonstrated that this natural and abundant insulator can be exfoliated to the limit of a single layer, maintaining its physical characteristics”, summarizes Cadore, who is currently a researcher at the National Laboratory of Nanotechnology (LNNano), but carried out the work at UPM, where he was a Professor. One of the main findings of the study was the fact that the ultrathin phlogopite is stable when subjected to thermal processing, as well as when exposed to the environment (the samples were left for 13 months in ambient conditions without showing degradation).

In addition, the work compared the characteristics of phlogopite with those of the synthetic insulator most used as a substrate in nanodevices, hexagonal boron nitride. For this, the Brazilian team developed a collaboration with the National Institute of Materials Science (NIMS, Japan), where the material with the best physical properties is produced. The Japanese group supplied the synthetic crystals.

According to the authors, given that two-dimensional phlogopite is an excellent electrical and thermal insulator, in addition to being naturally abundant and easy to extract, it can be used as a low-cost material in devices that are still little explored at the nano scale, such as transistors, capacitors and photodetectors. These applications become even more promising given the possibility of using two-dimensional phlogopite in structures with unique properties called “van der Waals heterostructures”, which are formed by stacking ultrathin layers of different materials, joined by van der Waals forces. Therefore, the authors of the article assembled phlogopite and tungsten disulfide heterostructures and studied some of their properties. “We emphasize that two-dimensional phlogopite is a stable insulator under ambient conditions and can be easily combined with other 2D materials, creating ultrathin hybrid heterostructures, which expands the application of this nanomaterial in new future optoelectronic devices”, says Cadore.

Carried out as part of Raphaela de Oliveira’s doctorate, the work on the two-dimensional phlogopite is part of a research line begun in the Physics Department at UFMG. “Our studies have always involved different national and international researchers in obtaining and characterizing different natural 2D materials and their application in nanodevices and nanophotonics”, says Cadore, whose PhD in Physics at UFMG was on two-dimensional graphene heterostructures. The objective of these works is to find materials with the ideal characteristics for these applications, in order to replace the synthetic materials, which are expensive.

The work developed with phlogopite was inspired by studies carried out with soapstone, started at UFMG in 2015. Studies with this mineral continued at LNLS – CNPEM conducted by researcher Ingrid Barcelos, who also completed her PhD in Physics at UFMG with research on van der Waals heterostructures. In 2021, Ingrid won, for her work with soapstone, one of the For Women in Science awards, granted by L’Oréal Brasil in partnership with UNESCO and the Brazilian Academy of Sciences (ABC).

The research on two-dimensional phlogopite was funded by CAPES, CNPq, Mackenzie Research and Innovation Fund, FAPESP, FAPEMIG and the L’OREAL-UNESCO-ABC Award for Women in Science.

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Paper reference: Exploring the structural and optoelectronic properties of natural insulating phlogopite in van der Waals heterostructures. Alisson R Cadore, Raphaela de Oliveira, Raphael Longuinhos, Verônica de C Teixeira, Danilo A Nagaoka, Vinicius T Alvarenga, Jenaina Ribeiro-Soares, Kenji Watanabe, Takashi Taniguchi, Roberto M Paniago, Angelo Malachias, Klaus Krambrock, Ingrid D Barcelos and Christiano JS de Matos. 2022 2D Mater. 9 035007. https://doi.org/10.1088/2053-1583/ac6cf4.

Corresponding author contact: alissoncadore@gmail.com