A “gold standard” for computational materials science codes

Scientists from NCCR MARVEL led the most comprehensive verification effort so far on computer codes for materials simulations, providing their colleagues with a reference dataset and a set of guidelines for assessing and improving existing and future codes.

An in-depth look at a high-temperature superconducting nickelate

A new study by Philipp Werner's group at the University of Fribourg makes advancements in the theoretical description of the correlated electron state of La3Ni2O7,  which has recently been described as a superconductor with a critical temperature around 80 K. The use of  GW+EDMFT, a method developed within MARVEL over the last ten years, was crucial for the study.

Using machine learning to design better catalysts

A collaboration between the COSMO Lab and BASF demonstrates how ML-driven materials modeling can be used to solve pressing technological challenges, designing catalysts that require much smaller quantities of rare elements, and gets a special mention in the company's annual press conference. 

Swiss Open Research Data prize acknowledges Nicola Marzari

Nicola Marzari and his team at EPFL and the Paul Scherrer Institut received a special acknowledgement from the jury of the National Prize for Open Research Data, awarded by the Swiss Academies of Arts and Sciences on 6 December. The theme of the prize was “The re-use of research data”, for projects that either re-use data from other projects or make their own data available in such a way that other researchers can conduct further work with it.

Nicola Marzari among the most highly cited scientists in 2023

Like every year, Clarivate has published its list of Highly Cited Researchers who have demonstrated significant and broad influence in their field of research. NCCR MARVEL Director Nicola Marzari, who leads the Laboratory for Materials Simulations (LMS) at the Paul Scherrer Institute and the Laboratory of Theory and Simulation of Materials at EPFL, is featured in the list. 

MARVEL Junior Seminar — December 2023

The MARVEL Junior Seminar series is held in hybrid mode, in order to maintain in-person contacts and allow off-campus attendees to follow the seminars remotely! The MARVEL Junior Seminars aim to intensify interactions between the MARVEL Junior scientists belonging to different research groups.  We are pleased to propose the 56th MARVEL Junior Seminar: Philip Loche (Lab. of computational science and modelling - COSMO, EPFL) and Yuri Cho (Computational molecular design lab. - LCMD, EPFL) will present their research. The seminar will be chaired by Alessandro Carbone (Lab. of theory and simulation of materials - THEOS, EPFL).

[CANCELED] MARVEL Distinguished Lecture — Elisa Molinari

The 36th NCCR MARVEL Distinguished Lecture will be given by Prof. Elisa Molinari, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, and Cnr-Nano, Modena, Italy. She will be presenting a lecture entitled: "The excitons that you might not expect." 

Equal opportunity activities for young girls and boys in 2024

MARVEL and EPFL's Science Outreach Department are pleased to announce equal opportunity initiatives targeting girls and boys. Registration for the science workshop Diamants, alu, caoutchouc, ils sont fous ces matériaux (girls 7-10 years old) are opening on 20 November 2023 and will fill up quickly. Registrations for the Coding club des filles in the French part of Switzerland are opening on 20 December 2023, with also propositions in the other cantons, in German and Italian with registrations all along the year. Those for the summer camps in chemistry and on materials science will open in March 2024.