Is it possible to use plasma in agriculture? The article "Plasma Treatment Modifies Element Distribution in Seed Coating and Affects Further Germination and Plant Growth through Interaction with Soil Microbiome", which was just published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, and in which O. Kylián participated, tries to find an answer to this question. 

We would like to congratulate V. Holubec on being one of only two scientists from the Czech Republic to be awarded APS’s 2024 Outstanding Referee. 

More details and a complete list of awarded scientists may be found here. 

Together with colleagues from the Institute of Physics of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, we are organizing a traditional German-Czech workshop on nanomaterials. This workshop will be held on June 10 and 11, 2024 in the premises of the Institute of Physics.

More details may be found here. 

Congratulations to our students for receiving funding for their research projects from the Charles University Grant Agency! Greetings come to:

• D. Voráč: Elusive delayed interactions in active matter
  models
• E.P. Cital: Generalization of thermodynamic uncertainty relations for underdamped systems

Z. Krtouš and V. Březina received funds to cover the costs associated with their internships at prestigious foreign institutions:

• V. Březina: Peter-Debye-Institute fro Soft Matter Physics, Uni Leipzig, Germany
• Z. Krtouš: University of California, Santa Barbara, USA

Nanoparticles of metal oxides have very wide applications in various fields. As we have shown in the just published article in Ceramics International, an interesting application of V₂O₅ nanoparticles is their use as a platform for non-plasmonic surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy.

As part of an international scientific project, we participated in the development and preparation of new semi-transparent titanium oxide nanotubular coatings doped with silver with tunable morphology.

The results of this study were published in the journal ACS Applied Nano Materials.

As the recent epidemic of COVID-19 has shown, to ensure safety, it is necessary to have materials available that enable the effective destruction of viruses. O. Kylián, in cooperation with JU, participated in the development of a unique antiviral coating for respirators, which is based on galvanic corrosion of copper. More can be found in the publication published in the journal  ACS Applied Nano Materials.

Since the 1^st of January 2024, two new GAČR projects will be running in our department:

• Plasma-assisted synthesis of hybrid nanomaterials for laser-driven proton-boron nuclear fusion (A. Shukurov)

• Nanomaterials based on conductive polymers for surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy
  (O.Kylián)

Metallic nanofluids consisting of Ag nanoparticles prepared using a gas aggregation source and poly(ethylene glycol) demonstrated a memristive (memory) effect. Nanoparticles form 3D conductive bridges in an electric field. The electric current passing through the bridges has a jumping character, reminiscent of the process of information transmission in biological neural networks. These results were published in Advanced Functional Materials.

At the conference XII iPlasmaNano, which was organised on the French island Guadeloupe, O.Kylián gave an invited lecture "Magnetron-based gas aggregation sources of nanoparticles: state-of-the-art, challenges and future perspectives".

At the 13^th Asian-European International Conference on Plasma Surface Engineering in Busan, Korea, Professor Andrey Shukurov gave an invited lecture on 'One-Step Sputter-Driven Synthesis of Metal Nitride Nanoparticles and Nanofluids'.

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Marco Tosca, Ph.D. student from the group of Prof. Shukurov, won the Best Poster competition at the 3^rd International Workshop on Proton-Boron Fusion held in Prague and Dolní Břežany, Czech Republic. Marco was awarded the first prize for the poster ‘Nanoparticles of Plasma Polymerized Hexane Targets for Laser- Driven Proton-Boron Fusion’.

Our warmest congratulations!

An original system for the effective preparation of bi-metallic nanoparticles was developed at our department, which uses a cylindrical post magnetron. The results of the study of this new source of nanoparticles have just been accepted in the journal Vacuum.

Details can be found here.

The mechanism of formation of nanoparticles in gas aggregation sources is still the subject of controversy. In the just-published article in Surface and Coatings Technology, prepared in close collaboration with the University of South Bohemia, we show that dimers sputtered from the magnetron target play an important role in the initial stages of the formation of nanoparticles.

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Since the 1^st of October, a new international GAČR project has been running in our department under the leadership of Dr. Ryabov. This joint project with Osnabrück University is focused on the study of cluster-mediated driven transport in highly populated periodic structures.