Getting additional funding is supposed to be important criterion in evaluating the performance of Lendület (Momentum) groups. Therefore, I'm pleased to report that the TÁMOP-4.2.2.D-15/1/KONV-2015-0024 project „ELITeam” was selected to be supported. The project title is: "ELI Intézet létrehozása a Szegedi Tudományegyetemen: interdiszciplináris kutatások megalapozása a lézerek és alkalmazásai területén"  ("Establishing an ELI Institute at the University of Szeged: foundations of interdisciplinary research in the field of lasers and their applications"). This will run until 30th October 2015. I am heading subproject 4.5 with a budget of 8 million HUF. Our topic is the usage of high power density methods for modifying the surface of core-shell nanoparticles.

Two weeks ago Zoltán Kónya and myself participated at the World Congress and Expo on Nanotechnology and Materials Science in Dubai, UAE. The conference was fine, the talks were received well, and there is a nice group photo that justifies this blog entry :)

I had the privilege of giving a 45 minutes long talk to the Section of Chemical Sciences of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences yesterday. I summarized the 3 year performance of the group in the context of our research plan, monitoring indicator progress and scientific results in all four focus areas: nanoparticle synthesis, interface studies, evaporation profile measurement and fluctuation enhanced sensing.

The national finals of the Chemistry Student Researcher Competition (OTDK in Hungarian) were held this weekend at Veszprém. I participated as a member of the Materials Science II committee and enjoyed some very nice talks there. However, the most important is that several Szeged students have managed to score at the competition. It is my pleasure to congratulate Balázs Buchholcz and his supervisors Henrik Haspel and Zoltán Kónya for the 3rd prize he achieved in Materials Science I. Tamás Varga, the other participating member of our team has also delivered a very solid presentation and has every right to be as proud as Balázs for making a great stand. Congratulations and keep up the good work guys! :)

Splendid news today! Our paper "Structure independent proton transport in cerium(III) phosphate nanowires" written by Péter Pusztai and Henrik Haspel was accepted for publication in ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces. This is a very nice work on the conductivity of hexagonal and monoclinic cerium phosphate nanowires. Congratulations and thank you to all contributors!