The Manuel Cardona Seminar Series is one of the most selective conferences in the world of nanotechnology and nanomaterials. Being asked to speak at the conference is an even more prized honor, as it signifies a researcher’s work as being among the best of the best.

UT Department of Materials Science and Engineering (MSE) Weston Fulton Professor Sergei Kalinin was recognized as the Manuel Cardona Lecture awardee of 2023 at one of the lectures hosted by the Catalan Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (Institut Català de Nanociència i Nanotecnologia, or ICN2) recently in Barcelona, held once a year.

“It was quite the honor to be invited, and a great opportunity to share with our colleagues around the world the work we are doing here in MSE,” Kalinin said. “In particular, I enjoyed talking about some of the ideas we have on how machine learning can help us understand the beautiful images of atomic structures visualized by the scanning transmission electron microscopes, and use the power of the electron beams to manipulate matter atom by atom.”

Kalinin’s lecture, “Bits to Atoms and Atoms to Bits: Automated Experiment and Atomic Fabrication in Electron Microscopy,” covered a number of topics, but was focused on what automation could mean for the fabrication of objects at the atomic level, the next steps needed in the development of technology to allow it, and what the future could hold for “atomically precise” devices.

He was invited to the conference by ICN2 and Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies Professor Jordi Arbiol, a well-known figure in the world of microscopy and nanotechnology who serves as advanced electron nanoscopy group leader at ICN2.

The lecture series is named in honor of Professor Manuel Cardona, who worked as a physicist in the US, Argentina, Switzerland, and Germany before becoming the founding director of the world-renown Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research. He was also a key advisor in the creation of ICN2.