Nano-Glass kick-off meeting

The kick-off meeting of the Nano-Glass project was successfully held online on April 28th. It was the first time that all the members of this EU-funded International Training Network (ITN) came together to discuss the progress and the next steps of the project.

Official presentations of Iliyan Karadzhov, Susana Plascencia, Davide Rizzotti, and Alessia Mezzadrelli the four Early Stage Researchers (ESRs), were made. The four students, that hold a Marie Sklodowska Curie fellowship, presented themselves and their work to all the ICFO and Corning Incorporated partners involved in the initiative.

Valerio Pruneri:”The objective is to make sure that students get to know ICFO and industry sectors and what it means to be carrying out industrial research. Students will have a unique opportunity to work in a world-leading research program”

The meeting started with the presentation from the Project Coordinator and ICREA Professor at ICFO, Valerio Pruneri, who offered a general overview of the project and the goals to fulfil. Pruneri made emphasis on the fact that the 4 research projects of this ITN project are “very ambitious, combining the expertise in surface science and glass materials from Corning and the ICFO knowledge of photonics and quantum”.
“The objective is to make sure that students get to know ICFO and industry sectors and what it means to be carrying out industrial research. Students will have a unique opportunity to work in a world-leading research program”, concluded Pruneri.
Subsequently, each of the four ESRs briefly presented their research projects to the consortium by giving details on the general objectives they are seeking, the scopes that they are intending to follow, and the approaches the intend to use.
The individual research projects that the students will be working are:

• Durable multifunctional micro-nano-structured surfaces by Iliyan Karadzhov
• Tunable transparent projection screens by Alessia Mezzadrelli
• In-fibre quantum photon generators and processors by Davide Rizzotti
• Quantum memories based on fiber materials, Susana Plascencia

The last part of the meeting was dedicated to reviewing the tasks and objectives assigned to the management and communication working packages.
As a first step in the execution of the ITN, once they have finished their training period at ICFO, the summer the ESRs will be moving to Corning’s headquarters in the United States to carry on their six-month-long secondment stay, basically from July to December, and hoping to acquire as much know-how and experience to continue pursuing their PhD studies.