Every year ICMAB participates in the programme Bojos per la Física, by La Fundació Catalunya La Pedrera and co-organized by ICN2 and IFAE. Every Saturday morning for a few months, a group of highly motivated 1st year baccalaureate students visit research centres to learn how research is done in the topics of quantum, cosmology, particles and matter. This programme, allows them to be introduced to different research fields inside the Physics area and to learn about its impact in new technologies that shape the world.
Bojos per la Física after the activity
In their 2025 visit to ICMAB they learnt about the nano world from a materials' perspective. They were shown ICMAB’s research on materials for energy, biomedicine, electronics and how the different stages of research in the fabrication of new materials (synthesis, characterization and modelling) are intertwined. This knowledge adds to the one from their visits at IFAE, ICN2 and ICFO.
They were welcomed at the centre with an introductory talk about the ICMAB and its research by Anna Drou, from the Communication Unit. In this talk, an overview on the structure surrounding state-of-the-art science conducted at ICMAB, from its organization to its funding, was also given. After that, Luis Alberto Pérez, from the NANOPTO group and Guilherme Telles from the SUMAN group introduced their research on colloids and superconductors respectively to the students. After the talks, they moved to the demonstrations and activities.
Luis Pérez (NANOPTO) during his introductory talk
Experimenting with colloids in nature
In the first activity, the participants experimented with the optical properties of colloids. They saw how shape, size and density of nanoparticles influence the properties of the colloids and also experimented with light and its diffraction properties. A beautiful activity to show that the basis of a lot of cutting-edge technologies is the understanding of the simplest principles of nature: light and its interaction with matter.
Experimenting with colloids
Quantum levitation
The second activity was the always-successful quantum levitating train. In this demonstration, the students learned about superconductors and the effects they show below their critical temperature. The very impressing experience of seeing a levitating train after being soaked with liquid nitrogen, sparked a long discussion and interested questions on the superconductivity phenomena and its multiple applications.
The quantum levitating train in circulation
Outreach and science
The activity was a big success. The different formats and topics of the activities helped to the dynamic flow of the activity which engaged students all the way through it. These kind of activities wouldn’t be possible without researchers and technicians of the centre which make an effort to think how to convey the state-of-the-art research they work in to different publics while encouraging people to develop a passion or, in the case of students, a career in science. Outreach activities, every time more recognised as part of the scientific activity, are key to make sense of science in the world, both increasing scientific culture and creating discussion.
The coordinators of the activites for Bojos per la Física at ICMAB. From left to right: Thomas Günkel and Guilherme Telles (SUMAN) and Xiaoyu Qi and Luis Pérez (NANOPTO)
Previous years:
ICMAB hosts the last session of the 2024 edition of "Bojos per la Física" (2024)
The "Bojos per la Física" did a session on Physics and Science Communication at ICMAB (2022)
In the last "Bojos per la Física" at ICMAB students could learn about magnetism and piezoelectricity (2021)
