Emil summed up his stay as follows.
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„As part of the internship, I participated in sample preparation and analysis, from creating a polymer mask using nanolithography, through sputtering aluminum layers, to studying the response of nanostructures to applied electrical pulses in a Triton400 cryostat, which allows for temperature reduction to 300 millikelvins. My stay at the Institute allowed me to better understand the phenomena occurring in superconductors under conditions where the role of crystal lattice vibrations in energy transport becomes negligible, and quantum effects, such as the formation of Cooper pairs, become dominant. This week undoubtedly allowed me to better understand the operation of superconductors and expand my knowledge of low-temperature physics. The internship was a prize I received in the Physics Paths competition for my presentation of the quantum locking phenomenon in superconductors, which I demonstrated on a 3D-printed track with Möbius strip geometry. Given my interests in nanoengineering and magnetism, I’m thrilled to have been assigned to a research group whose subject matter closely resembles a project I’ve been working on since high school. After completing my internship, I hope to continue collaborating with the research team and, in the future, pursue my own project in the modern laboratories of the Institute of Physics.” |
Miłosz summed up his stay as follows.
„During my internship at the Institute of Physics of the Polish Academy of Sciences, I had the opportunity to work under the supervision of Professor Maciej Zgirski and Dr. Marek Foltyn. I participated in research on thermodynamic processes in superconductors and learned the practical aspects of techniques such as electron lithography. I also had the opportunity to operate an electron microscope and become familiar with Molecular Beam Epitaxy (MBE) technology for producing unique quantum structures. I participated in the disassembly of a dilution refrigerator, which allowed me to better understand the structure and operation of this advanced device for obtaining ultralow temperatures. My stay at the Institute was a unique experience, both scientifically and personally. In the future, I plan to continue working with Professor Maciej Zgirski to further develop my interests and deepen my knowledge in experimental physics. This internship was incredibly inspiring and gave me the opportunity to develop in the areas of physics that most interest me.”
On March 18th, 2025, MagTop Board members: Professors Dietl, Story, Wiśniewski, Wojtowicz, and Zgirski visited the Świętokrzyski Laboratory Campus of the Central Office of Measures (ŚKLGUM). Prof. Jacek Semaniak, the President of GUM, Piotr Ziółkowski, General Director of GUM and Paweł Zawadzki, Director of the Department of Electricity and Radiation, introduced the idea of campus, presented already existing and planned laboratories. During the discussion, the need to continue the already ongoing project on new resistance standards was confirmed. Such a project will be prepared by MagTop researchers in collaboration with the University of Rzeszów. The discussion was followed be a visit to the Laboratories of: Acoustics, Length, Time and frequency, Thermometry. Researchers from Labs presented the high requirements for the construction of rooms dedicated to the very high-precision equipment, explained the principle of operation of the equipment and the range of possible measurements. Some of these might be of interest to MagTop in the future.
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Michał summed up his stay as follows.
„I had the opportunity to visit professional laboratories and see interesting devices that I had not encountered before, such as a resistor with a resistance of 400 giga ohms, furnaces heating up to over 1000 degrees, large magnets, SQUIDs and lock-ins used, among others, to study the quantum effect Hall, which we connect to the tested object with 4 inputs (as opposed to the standard connection of electronic components to meters). I was also able to experience how scientific research is conducted, including taking part in electroluminescence measurements, which required cooling with liquid helium, and participating in magnetic hysteresis measuremants with a VSM magnetometer. In addition, I saw and partially learned the Czochralski crystal growth method and the MBE crystal growth technique. Additionally, I had the opportunity to see what the life of a scientist in such an institute is like. The whole stay was a very interesting and developing experience.”
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In the photo: Krzysztof Dybko, Michał Mielnicki, Michał Szot, Andrzej Wiśniewski |
The mini-symposium agenda:
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The photo shows (from the left): Natalia Olszowska, Magdalena Szczepanik, Valentyn Volobuiev, Ewa Młyńczak, Ashutosh Wadge, Honey Boban. |
Seventy participants from nine countries plus several tens of IFPAN researchers attended the “Focused Expert Meeting”, its invited lectures, a round table discussion, poster session, and a guided tour over MagTop laboratories.
The lectures were delivered by:
The round table discussion, chaired by Tomasz Dietl, was focused on the future prospects and technological applications of the topological condensed matter. Artur Kębłowski, R&D Director of Vigo Photonics, was one of the panelists. The full event program can be found on the website: https://magtop.ifpan.edu.pl/magtop-meeting-2023/ . 23 posters were presented by Ph.D. students and postdocs of MagTop and members of other IFPAN departments. The Ph.D. students and postdocs had a chance to interact and discuss with invited professors and experts. Overall, the event allowed the MagTop community to disseminate their accomplishments, to learn about most recent developments, to get new ideas, and to arrange new scientific collaborations.
MagTop’s employees Carmine Autieri, Aleksandr Kazakov, Marcin Wysokiński, and Alexander Lau were Chairs of Meeting; MagTop’s PIs, Tomasz Dietl and Tomasz Wojtowicz, together with Carmine Autieri, were responsible for the Program. As a part of soft skill training, the local organizing committee was composed of MagTop Ph.D. students and young postdocs. Actually, virtually all MagTop members were involved: as organizers, speakers, session chairs, poster presenters, and guides of the laboratory tours, as indicated at https://magtop.ifpan.edu.pl/magtop-meeting-2023/ .
The event was supported by MagTop and the Institute of Physics of the Polish Academy of Sciences (IFPAN) and held in IFPAN’s Leonard Sosnowski Auditorium. The conference dinner was organized in Restauracja Papu, which serves traditional Polish cuisine.
The conference benefitted greatly from the support of the local co-organizers Sigurður Ingi Erlingsson (Reykjavík University), Andrei Manolescu (Reykjavík University), and Viðar Guðmundsson (University of Iceland). It was also partly supported by NCN, through the OPUS grant program (Mircea Trif). The Northern Light Conference was fully in-person, and gathered ~70 participants, among which 32 were invited speakers from Europe, US, and China. A hallmark of the Northern Lights Conference was its demographics: it consisted mostly of young and very prolific physicists, with a balanced ratio between men and female scientists. Among the many invited speakers, a few representative names covering both theoretical and experimental works were: 
The full conference program can be found on the website: https://www.northernlightsconference22.eu/. Many junior scientists (PhDs and postdocs) showcased their results during a lively poster session. Furthermore, each poster presenter had been given the opportunity to pitch their poster in a 3 minutes oral talk during one of the invited sessions. A selected few, among which were the MagTop members Dr. Alexander Lau and Dr. Archana Mishra, have shared their results in contributed talks.
The conference was held in the conference room of the National Museum of Iceland, Reykjavík (photo), providing an environment conducive to interactions and scientific discussions. Moreover, it offered a great opportunity to combine cutting-edge science with cultural exposure: throughout the conference, all participants were offered free access to the museum to learn first hand about the history of Iceland. The conference banquet was held at the Matarkjallarinn Food Cellar in the heart of Reykjavík. The social program also included a half a day excursion to Þingvellir National Park, the scenic Gullfoss waterfall, and the geothermal area in Haukadalur (the “Golden Circle”). Overall, the feedback from the participants was overwhelmingly positive and, since Next Generation Partnership Network of the Universität Hamburg will continue throughout 2023, we hope the Northern Lights Conference will become a series of conferences in the future.
was organized jointly by the Institute of Physics of the Polish Academy of Sciences and the Faculty of Physics of the University of Warsaw with a technical support of the Nobell Congressing company. JEMS conferences are held under the patronage of the European Magnetism Association (EMA). The conference in Warsaw, JEMS2022, was additionally held under the patronage of the Rector of the University of Warsaw, Prof. Alojzy Nowak. The chair of the Organizing Committee was Andrzej Wiśniewski (MagTop, Institute of Physics of the Polish Academy of Sciences), co-chairman was Andrzej Twardowski (Faculty of Physics, University of Warsaw). The chair of the Program Committee was Maciej Sawicki (Institute of Physics of the Polish Academy of Sciences), co-chairman Diana C. Leitão (Eindhoven University of Technology, Netherlands). The full list of the committees is available on the website: https://jems2022.pl/. The sponsors of the conference were: US Army (Army Research Office), Evico Magnetics, Qnami and Quantum Design (three companies had their stands at the Conference). The JEMS2022 conference was hybrid. 633 participants from 42 countries took part in it; 447 came to Warsaw, 186 participated remotely. Due to Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, by the decision of the organizers and the EMA, participants affiliated with Russian and Belarusian scientific institutions could not participate in the conference. Eleven participants from Ukraine were exempted from the conference fees, some of them came to Warsaw, some of them attended online. JEMS2022 consisted of 18 thematic symposia, 5 plenary and 10 semi-plenary lectures, 83 invited lectures and 349 oral presentations; 150 posters were presented in remote sessions. Plenary lectures were delivered by:-Geoffrey Beach (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA): Domain Walls and Skyrmions: From Ferromagnets to Ferrimagnets,
-Felix Casanova (CIC nanoGUNE, Spain): Spin-orbit proximity in van der Waals heterostructures for logic devices,
-Nora Dempsey (University of Grenoble Alpes – Institut Néel, France): Hard magnetic: from material studies to micro-system application, https://jems2022.pl/
-Mathias Kläui (University of Mainz, Germany): From Spin-Orbitronics to Orbitronics – novel science and applications in memory & non-conventional computing,
-Laurens Molenkamp (University of Würzburg, Germany): Making Sense of the Quantum Anomalous Hall Effect.
The full conference program can be found on the website: https://jems2022.pl/. Poster presentations took place only in a remote form. Within individual sessions, each person presenting the poster had 2 minutes to briefly present the most important results. Then presenters and session participants could connect to individual „rooms” where the results were discussed in detail. A memorial session was organized as part of the conference. These were pre-recorded lectures on the recently deceased outstanding foreign physicists in the field of magnetism: Igor E. Dzyaloshinski, John Slonczewski and Polish: Marek Cieplak, Ludwik Dobrzyński, Robert Gałązka, Roman Micnas, Janusz Morkowski, Wojciech Suski and Włodzimierz Zawadzki. The lectures are available on the conference website: https://jems2022.pl/memorial-lectures. The conference was held at the university campus at Krakowskie Przedmieście (rooms in the Auditorium Maximum and the Old Library of the University of Warsaw). The three previous JEMS conferences (Glasgow, Mainz and Uppsala) have been held at commercial conference centers. The campus and its immediate surroundings were a great showcase of the University and Warsaw, and provided an atmosphere conducive to discussions and scientific discussions. The authorities of the European Magnetism Association, the organization under the auspices of which JEMS conferences are organized, have even decided to recommend that, if possible, subsequent JEMS conferences should be held at universities. The conference banquet was held in Arkady Kubicki (part of the Royal Castle in Warsaw). Participants had the opportunity to reach the Arcades through the Castle courtyard, the hall and the upper garden. Naturally, the place of the banquet prompted explanations related to the history of the Castle, in particular its fate during the war and its subsequent reconstruction. Many guests were interested in this.
The next JEMS2023 conference will be held in Madrid, its organizers have declared that they want to use many solutions that were introduced at the Warsaw conference.