Department of Functional Materials

At the end of May, an atom probe tomography (APT) laboratory started operating at the Institute of Thermomechanics of the Czech Academy of Sciences. It is an instrument that can examine a small piece of material atom by atom. The laboratory was funded by the OP JAK FerrMion project, in which the Institute of Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences also plays a significant role.

A team of scientists from the Czech Academy of Sciences and Masaryk University has made a major contribution to research into the accumulation of impurities at the interface between crystals, a phenomenon having caused e.g. a series of accidents at nuclear power stations in the UK in the 1960s.

The FerrMion project focuses on research and development of technical applications of ferroic materials, such as ferroelastic alloys with shape memory or multiferroics combining unique electrical, magnetic and mechanical properties. The planned research covers a broad spectrum of physical and technical fields and promises applications in energy, medicine and robotics. As part of the project, a unique 3D atomic probe material characterisation facility, the first of its kind in the Czech Republic, will be commissioned on the premises of the academic institutes in Prague Na Slovance.

Petr Šittner from the Institute of Physics has become one of the laureates of this year’s Academy Premium awarded by the Czech Academy of Sciences. The president of the Academy of Sciences only announced the four winners for the first time in the fourteen-year history of the prominent science award, in a departure from the traditional prize-giving ceremony.