EPFL and Solvay team up on an atomic-scale modeling project

EPFL — through the National Centre of Competence in Research MARVEL — recently signed an agreement with the firm Solvay. The aim of this partnership is to use quantum modeling to gain greater insight into physical and chemical phenomena and predict innovative materials and composites with a promising range of properties.

Magnetic spirals for spiralling data

With internet use ever expanding, there is an urgent need for more energy efficient data storage. Current technology records data in the magnetic state of a material using a magnetic field generated by an electric current. Energy efficiency would be enormously improved if we could replace the magnetic field by an electric field. Manipulating a material’s magnetisation by an electric field is not straightforward, however. Multiferroic magnetic spirals are one of very few ways this might be achieved, but these tend to be stable only at temperatures way below normal device operating conditions. In a series of papers, MARVEL groups led by Nicola Spaldin at ETHZ and Marisa Medarde at PSI show that magnetic spirals can be tuned and stabilised beyond room temperature by manipulating chemical disorder. This new mechanism may be exploited in the design of energy efficient data storage devices where the magnetisation is controlled by an electric field.

ChemAlive - MARVEL collaboration wins grant to boost machine learning approaches to real-time chemical and reaction modelling

Founded in December 2014, ChemAlive (www.chemalive.com) has already gained contract business with customers such as Biosynth in Switzerland and internationally with Saudi Aramco (Aramco Services Center) to validate quantum chemistry in an industrial setting and guide the design of specific on-line tools to be launched as a software as a service (SaaS) in the third quarter of 2018. ChemAlive has also won the support of influential start-up accelerators, taking away the Gold Award, for example, from the MassChallenge Accelerator.

MARVEL labs collaborate to revolutionize computational metallurgy

Close collaboration between two NCCR MARVEL labs may soon result in a fundamental change to the traditional simulation approaches in computational metallurgy and a deeper understanding of how processing and composition affect the properties of metals and their alloys.

Two MARVEL sessions at the 2018 SPS Annual Meeting!

The next annual SPS meeting is organized in collaboration with the Swiss Institute of Particle Physics (CHIPP) and the NCCR MARVEL (Computational Design and Discovery of Novel Materials). The program will consist of the approved mix of plenary talks, topical sessions and poster exhibition. Abstract submission is EXTENDED until Sunday May 13, 2018.

Workshop - Artificial intelligence applied to chemistry and materials science

This workshop aims to bring together French and European actors on the theme of artificial intelligence (AI) applied to chemistry and materials science. With both general and specific presentations, this meeting will be an opportunity to define the state of the art about applications of AI in fields like solid-state chemistry.

CCMX – NCCR MARVEL Materials Science Day 2018

Make sure to network with colleagues from the materials science scene in Switzerland! The NCCR MARVEL and CCMX are co-organizing their second Materials Science day, featuring both experimental and modelling approaches to current challenges in materials science. 

CECAM-MARVEL Mary Ann Mansigh series: Transgressing boundaries — Erwin Schrödinger and the challenges of scientific biography

CECAM and MARVEL present a new event in our Mary Ann Mansigh Conversation series. In a discussion with Dr Magdalena Gronau, chemist, and Martin Gronau, classicist and scholar of ancient studies,  both at the Leibniz Centre for Literary and Cultural Research in Berlin, drawing on previously unexamined sources, we will reassess controversy surrounding Erwin Schrödinger’s private relationships and offers a new perspective on his complex personal life, taking into account the viewpoints of his female partners, whose voices have remained largely unheard.

Webinar: How can AI unlock innovation in Advanced Materials?

We invite you to join this webinar to discover "How can AI unlock innovation in Advanced Materials". Drawing on recent work in the European Scientific Advice Mechanism, the expert panel will set out the opportunities of AI and other digital technologies in transforming innovation in Advanced Materials. Among the panel members, meet Prof. Nicola Marzari, director of NCCR MARVEL. 

MARVEL Fest: party-ing away

On July 9-10, 2026, MARVEL final event at EPFL will close 12 years of research and activities on computational materials science. This event will be dedicated to the accomplishments of MARVEL and to the relevance of these to the industrial and technological ecosystem, inviting alumni and key players worldwide in academia and industry, SNSF review panel, scientific and industrial advisory boards, EPFL leadership, and scientific journalists. Discover the preliminary program of July 9.

CECAM workshop "MatOSC: shaping together a future EOSC node for Materials"

The "MatOSC: shaping together a future EOSC node for Materials" workshop will take place in Lausanne, 13th-14th July, at CECAM headquarters. The event will be in person and over two half-days, from lunchtime to lunchtime. MatOSC is a project to prepare a future thematic node for Materials in the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC). MatOSC aims to act as the EOSC thematic entry point for materials science, turning today's fragmented landscape of discipline-, technique-, and country-specific materials data initiatives into a coherent, discoverable, and reusable European system of systems. This open event aims to gather prospective providers and users of such a node, to collect needs, identify potential offerings and discuss possible use cases.