Orbitronics: new material property advances energy-efficient tech

Orbital angular momentum monopoles have been the subject of great theoretical interest as they offer major practical advantages for the emerging field of orbitronics, a potential energy-efficient alternative to traditional electronics. Now, through a combination of robust theory and experiments at the Swiss Light Source SLS at Paul Scherrer Institute PSI, their existence has been demonstrated. The discovery is published in the journal Nature Physics.

A new benchmark to recognize the hardest problems in materials science

A large collaboration led by MARVEL's Giuseppe Carleo has  introduced a method to compare the performance of different algorithms, both classical and quantum ones, when simulating complex phenomena in condensed matter physics. The new benchmark, called V-score, is described in an article just published in Science and has been validated on several examples of quantum many-body problems, pointing to the ones where future quantum computing algorithms may really make a difference. 

The story of Jacutingaite: how a wonder material went from the mine to theory, crystal growth and experiments

The first article of a series about MARVEL's success stories from its 10 years of research. In this story, we revisit how a close collaboration between theorists and experimentalists led to identify, synthesize and test a unique exotic material that until then had only appeared in some samples from a Brazilian mine. The material, called jacutingaite and with the composition Pt2HgSe3, was eventually confirmed to be the first ever material showing the so-called Kane-Mele physics, a quantum phenomenon that had been predicted but never seen in action before. Research is still ongoing on the original jacutingaite and on other materials of its family, and could lead to several technological applications. 

Giulia Galli has received the Joseph O. Hirschfelder Prize in Theoretical Chemistry

The University of Chicago professor, who is a member of the MARVEL Scientific Advisory Board, is this year’s awardee of the prestigious prize created by the University of Wisconsin-Madison to celebrate the work of theoretical chemistry pioneer Joseph O. Hirschfelder. Following the prize announcement in August, she has recently visited the Madison campus and given a talk on successes and challenges of quantum simulations of next generation materials.

MARVEL Junior Seminar — November 2024

The MARVEL Junior Seminars aim to intensify interactions between the MARVEL Junior scientists belonging to different research groups – this is held in hybrid mode, in order to maintain in-person contacts and allow off-campus attendees to follow the seminars remotely! We are pleased to propose the 62nd MARVEL Junior Seminar: Flaviano Dos Santos (Laboratory for materials simulations, PSI) and Fatemeh Haddadi (Lab. of theory and simulation of materials - THEOS, EPFL) will present their research. 

The story of Jacutingaite at EPFL Scientastic 2024

During the 2024 edition of Scientastic, the EPFL Science Festival, being held on Saturday 9 and Sunday 10 November, you will discover how science works! In particular, meet Lidia Favre-Quattropani, MARVEL scientific manager, telling the the story of Jacutingaite, or how a wonder material went from the mine to theory, crystal growth and experiments.

Two new recipients of MARVEL fellowships

We are happy to announce that Maria Andolfatto (University of Milano-Bicocca) was granted an INSPIRE Potentials – MARVEL Master's Fellowship through a anticipated evaluation in September 2024. She will join the MARVEL lab of Nicola Marzari for a 6-month Master's project. On her side, Mitra Dowlatabadi is the first recipient of the new MARVEL INSPIRE visiting PhD fellowship. As a PhD student at the University of Trieste, under the supervision of Antimo Marrazzo, she will spend 6 months in the group of Nicola Marzari at EPFL for a fruitful collaboration — congratulations to both!