Minerva Prize 2011 goes to Maria Antonietta Loi
The FOM Foundation has awarded the Minerva Prize 2011* to FOM workgroup leader Prof. Maria Loi. She receives this prize for her article about a new discovery for the use of carbon nanotubes for optoelectronic nanodevices. The FOm/f advisory committee was highly impressed by the quality of her article that was published last year in Advanced Materials when Loi was working at the University of Groningen. The Minerva Prize rewards the best scientific publication from a female researcher about a physics subject during the past two years. On 17 January 2012, the Minerva Prize will be presented during the Congress Physics@FOM Veldhoven. The press is warmly invited to attend.
The research that led to the article 'Encapsulation of conjugated oligomers in single-walled carbon nanotubes: towards nanohybrids for photonic devices' was carried out by a European partnership initiated and coordinated by Loi. The researchers demonstrated that in nanotubes, the dye alpha-sexithiophene emits photons with energies higher than just those of the first excited state. It was also discovered that the nanotubes protect the light-sensitive materials, as a result of which these become more stable. These discoveries are particularly important for the possible applications of so-called 'organic-dye nanotube hybrid light emitters'. The FOm/f advisory committee, which unanimously chose this article from 11 submissions, explains their choice: "Loi made a very important contribution to the realisation of the research and the article that arose from this. The article is clearly written and is comprehensible to non-specialists. Furthermore it is research in a relevant area and the results are of major importance for the field concerned."
Maria Antonietta Loi gained a doctorate in 2001 from the University of Cagliari (Italy) and subsequently worked as a post-doc at the Johannes Kepler University of Linz and the University of Bologna. After completing a tenure track appointment within the Rosalind Franklin Fellowship-programme at the University of Groningen she is currently employed there as a professor, FOM workgroup leader and head of the Photophysics & Optoelectronics group.
Minerva Prize
The bi-annual Minerva Prize for the best physics publication from a woman is part of the FOm/f Programme (for more information see www.fom.nl/fomf), which aims to retain more female scientists for physics in the Netherlands. The aim of the prize is to draw attention to excellent female physicists and to give a boost to the career of the prize winner. The prize is awarded to a Dutch woman or to a foreign woman who has done research for her publication in the Netherlands. A sum of 5000 euros is awarded with the Minerva Prize, which the winner is free to spend as she wishes.
* The Minerva Prize 2011 is actually the Minerva Prize 2012 (this bi-annual prize has been awarded for the last time in 2010). However FOM has decided to equalize the date of the Minerva Prize as from this year to the other FOM prizes.
Presentation
The Minerva Prize will be presented during the congress Physics@FOM Veldhoven in NH Koningshof in Veldhoven, on the evening of Tuesday 17 January 2012. On Wednesday 18 January, Maria Antonietta Loi will give a presentation about the research which she described in the winning article.
Information
For further information about the research please contact:
Prof. Maria Antonietta Loi
University of Groningen
Telephone: +31 (0)50 363 83 37
For further information about the Minerva Prize and the FOm/f Programme please contact:
Noortje Vis
FOM programme coordinator
Telephone +31 (0)30 600 12 17
Reference
Nanohybrids for Photonic Devices: Encapsulation of Conjugated Oligomers in Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes: Towards Nanohybrids for Photonic Devices, written by Maria Antonietta Loi, Jia Gao, Fabrizio Cordella, Pascal Blondeau, Enzo Menna, Barbora Bártová, Cécile Hébert, Sorin Lazar, Gianluigi A. Botton, Matus Milko and Claudia Ambrosch-Draxl, was published in Advanced Materials 14 (2010).
See also: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/adma.200903527/abstract