ERC Advanced Grant funding

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: 2018–2024

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

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