Just before Christmas we recieved great news from our colleague Marin Petrović who, in collaboration with colleagues from the University of Duisburg-Essen, came to new findings important for understanding of synthesis of single-layer hexagonal boron nitride. Research results have been published in Scientific Reports, where it is shown how the morphology of the substrate which is used in the synthesis determines the shape of the growing domains of the hexagonal boron nitride.

Ivan Balog, together with a collaboration of scientists from Sorbonne Université, Visage Technologies AB, CEA Saclay and the University of Montevideo, has published an article in the prestigious journal Physical Review Letters. Authors have studied the convergence properties of the derivative expansion, an approximation which is often used for calculating the long wavelength properties in statistical physics, condensed matter and high energy physics.

Our colleague Damir Altus, together with Institute’s alumni M. Lihter and S. Marion, who currently work in the group of prof. A. Rađenović at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, published a paper in prestigious journal Nano Letters about DNA detection using a MoS₂ nanopore. DNA molecules are sensed by correlated signals from the ionic current through the nanopore and the transverse current through the nanoribbon. The resulting signal suggests a field-effect sensing scheme where the charge of the molecule is directly sensed by the nanoribbon.

Our colleague Osor Slaven Barišić, in collaboration with scientists from the Physical Department of PMF in Zagreb and École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland, has published a paper in prestigious journal Communications Physics. The authors investigated thermal conductivity in anatase TiO₂ single-crystals and exploited the influence of nano-structuring effects on the heat transport properties.

Our cold atomic gases research team, N. Šantić, D. Buhin, D. Kovačić, I. Krešić, D. Aumiler and T. Ban published their work in Scientific Reports where the cooling of the rubidium atoms has been studied by an unconventional method based on the use of femtosecond laser, which in the frequency domain acts as an optical frequency comb. This method could enable cooling of atoms with strong transitions in UV spectrum range which cannot be cooled by laser due to shortage of continuous-wave laser light sources in this spectral range.