Physics department workshop: community building & synergy development

The annual workshop of the Department of Physics and Materials Science (DPhyMS) was held on December 5^th , 2022, at the Maison des Arts et des Etudiants on the Belval Campus. This event is a great opportunity for academic members of the Department and bachelor/master students in physics to discuss with colleagues and fellow scientists and to develop new synergies, reinforce existing ones, and expand their horizons into other areas of physics and materials science.

Following a welcome speech by Prof. Alexandre Tkatchenko, Head of DPhyMS, the session chairs Dr. Maria Bélen FARIAS, Dr. Constance TOULOUSE, and Dr. Mathias BERSWEILER as well as the 17 speakers from the DPhyMS research groups set the scene for a stimulating physics day. Many ground-breaking developments covering a broad range of topics in the field of solid-state physics, liquid crystals, living matter, non-equilibrium thermodynamics, solar cells, mesoscopic quantum systems, data science, and machine learning were presented. Notably is also the contribution by Hugo Aramberri from the "Theory and Simulation of Functional Materials" group led by Affiliated Professor Jorge Iñiguez from the Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology. 

Besides the scientific program, this workshop also included three invited presentations: Paula Souza from the FSTM research facilitator team gave a presentation on external funding opportunities;  Dr. Sancho Moro presented the recent outreach activities of the Scienteens Lab in Physics and highlighted the efforts of the department to inspire future scientists; Dr. Aseem Kshirsagar shortly introduced LuxDoc, the association of doctoral students in Luxembourg. 

For the first time, this edition also included an award ceremony for the three best oral presentations. Handed over by Prof. Andreas Michels, deputy head of DPhyMS, the Top prize was awarded to Dr. Constance Toulouse, Christina Hill, and Dr. Pranab Biswas who presented the research activities of the “Multifunctional Ferroic Materials” group led by Prof. Jens Kreisel and Assistant Prof. Maël Guennou. 

With more than 170 participants, this third edition of the DPhyMS workshop was an outstanding event both scientifically and socially. The department warmly thanks Dr. Elodie Duriez and Patricia Ramoa for their commitment to the workshop as well as the organising team for the smooth running of the conference.