ERC Advanced Grant funding
Kari Astala
Project: Developing new mathematical methods for currently unsolvable problems led (QUAMAP)
Duration: 2019–2024
Professor Astala describes his work as 'developing mathematics and tools for analysing different mathematical models, particularly those arising in statistical physics and materials sciences. Diverse phenomena in properties of materials, fluid mechanics, medical scanning and even invisibility cloaking will be susceptible to the methods of analysis developed in this project.'
Pertti Hakonen
Project: Quantum devices in topological matter: carbon nanotubes, graphene, and novel superfluids
Duration: 2016–2021
Maarit Karppinen
Project: Unique ALD/MLD-Enabled Material Functions
Duration: 2023–2028
Professor Karppinen research group develops new materials by combining inorganic and organic components with atomic and molecular precision. The goal is to develop ALD/MLD technology in an innovative way, exploiting unique new hybrid materials and material functionalities.
Person profile Maarit Karppinen News: Significant funding for thin-film technology research - materials to be developed can be used, for example, in energy storage
Peter Liljeroth
Project: Artificial Designer Materials
Duration: 2018–2023
Professor Peter Liljeroth explores and fabricates new, artificial designer materials that do not exist in nature nor have yet been realised in the laboratory. The motivation for studying these materials are their electrical properties, and that they can be manipulated and tuned atom by atom with scanning tunneling microscopy or molecular self-assembly.
Person profile Peter LiljerothNews: ERC Advanced Grants for Peter Liljeroth and Orlando Rojas
Mikko Möttönen
Project: New superconducting quantum-electric device concept utilizing increased anharmonicity, simple structure, and insensitivity to charge and flux noise
Duration: 2022–2027
This five-year project led by Professor Mikko Möttönen, will develop a new qubit which will more accurately carry out quantum operations, such as those used in quantum computing. The team will also develop electronics that can operate at temperatures near absolute zero – in the millikelvin range. This is the fifth time Möttönen has received one of the extremely competitive ERC grants.
Person profile Mikko MöttönenNews: Mikko Möttönen and his team aim to rein in qubit errors
Jukka Pekola
Project: Superconducting quantum heat engines and refrigerators
Duration: 2017–2022
Jukka Pekola received a €2.4 million ERC Advanced Grant for developing quantum heat engines and refrigerators and for research on quantum thermodynamics. Professor Pekola has studied thermal fluctuations and energy transfer in superconducting nanostructures for the past two decades. In this research, Pekola and his team aim to construct quantum heat engines and refrigerators and try to find out whether their efficiency and cooling power can be improved in a controlled way with the help of quantum phenomena. At the same time, they will obtain information about thermodynamic phenomena in real-life quantum systems.
Person profile Jukka PekolaNews: Nearly 5 million euro for pioneering biomimetics and quantum technology research
Orlando Rojas
Project: Bioproducts Engineered from Lignocelluloses: from plants and upcycling to next generation materials
Duration: 2018–2023
Professor Orlando Rojas will builds the next generation supra-colloidal systems, capable of performing emergent functions by utilizing trans-disciplinary scientific approaches for deconstruction and re-assembly. Ultimately, his goal is to design and develop the materials of the future based on micro and nanoparticles from cellulose and lignin resourced from plants and lignocellulosic waste.
Personal profile Orlando RojasNews: ERC Advanced Grants for Peter Liljeroth and Orlando Rojas
Mika Sillanpää
Project: Probing the limits of quantum mechanics and gravity with micromechanical oscillators (GUANTUM)
Duration: 2021–2026
The team is trying to solve a hundred-year-old mystery of physics with the help of small gold spheres and extremely low temperatures.
In the GUANTUM project, researchers will bring gold spheres, with a diameter of 0.5 mm and a mass of one milligram, acting as sensitive oscillators in a quantum-mechanical state. It is an extremely closed system where phenomena unseen in classical physics may occur. At the same time, they will observe the very small gravitational forces, which cause the gold spheres to be attracted toward each other.
Personal profile Mika SillanpääNews: Physicist Mika A. Sillanpää wins a multi-million euro research grant to support work reconciling quantum mechanics and general relativity
Zhipei Sun
Project: Atomically-engineered nonlinear photonics with two-dimensional layered superlattices
Duration: 2019–2024
The expected outcomes of this project will result in significant advances in fundamental physics and breakthrough technologies to enable highly-integrated, wideband and high-efficient photonic systems.
- ERC-PoC: Pre-commercialization of new generation Atomic-layer-deposited Lasers for future green high-performance data centers, 2022-2024
Personal profile Zhipei SunNews: Aalto nabs 3 ERC Advanced Grants