Iontronics: from fundamentals to ion-controlled devices Faraday Discussion

Prof. Levin received B.Sc. degree in Physics and Mathematics (1987) from  Carnegie Mellon University and  obtained M.Sc. (1989) and Ph.D. (1992) from the University of California, Berkeley. After this he spent two years as a postdoctoral fellow with Michael E. Fisher at the University of Maryland. Presently he is a Professor of Physics at Instituto de Física, UFRGS and a level  1A researcher of CNPq (Brazil).  His research interests are: electrolytes, polyelectrolytes, plasmas, gravitational systems, charged colloids, vesicles, membranes, and ion channels. In 2012 he received the CBPF prize for his work on Statistical Mechanics and Biophisics and in 2014 prize Pesquisador Destaque.   In 2015 he was elected to Brazilian Academy of Sciences. In 2017 he was named the Outstanding Referee of The American Physical Society.

Lydéric Bocquet is director of research at CNRS and joint professor at the Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris.  His research interests are mainly curiosity driven and extend to domains at the interface of fluid dynamics, condensed matter and nanoscience. He combines experiments, theory and simulations to explore the intimate mechanisms of fluid transport from the macroscopic down to the molecular level, with a focus on nanofluidics, the science of molecular flows. A key objective is to explore the unexpected fluid transport behaviour occurring at the nanoscales in order to design and fabricate artificial “nanoscale ionic machines” based on emerging properties and capable to reproduce the amazing functionalities of biological systems. Another goal is to take benefit of the sometimes 'exotic' fluid transport behaviour occurring at the nanoscales to propose new routes for energy harvesting and desalination. He is cofounder of four start-ups, developing innovative applications based on fundamental advances.

Martin Z. Bazant is the E. G. Roos (1944) Chair Professor of Chemical Engineering and Mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  After a Ph.D. in Physics at Harvard (1997), he joined the MIT faculty in Mathematics (1998) and then Chemical Engineering (2008), where he served as Executive Officer from 2016 to 2020.  His awards include the Kuznetsov Prize in Theoretical Electrochemistry (ISE), the Acrivos Award in Chemical Engineering (AIChE), and the MITx Prize for Teaching in Massive Open Online Courses.  He also serves as President of the International Electrokinetics Society, Director of Data-Driven Design of Rechargeable Batteries (D3BATT), Director of the Center for Battery Sustainability, Chief Scientific Advisor for Saint Gobain Research North America, and Chief Scientist for Lithios, an MIT startup company he co-founded to develop Advanced Lithium Extraction from brines using electrochemistry. 

Arianna received her PhD from EPFL in 2014, advised by Prof. Jacques-E. Moser and Prof. M. Grätzel. Her graduate work focused on charge carrier dynamics in solid-state dye-sensitised and perovskite solar cells. Arianna did postdoctoral research from 2014 to 2016 as a SNSF Early Postdoc mobility fellow at the University of Washington. There, she worked on luminescent properties of semiconductor nanocrystals under the guidance of Prof. Gamelin. In 2018, Arianna received an SNSF Ambizione fellowship to start her independent research career in the group of Prof. Roke at EPFL.

Markus Valtiner is full professor (institute of applied physics) at TU Wien. He did his PhD at the Max-Planck-Institute in Düsseldorf with Martin Stratmann, and his post-doc with Jacob Israelachvili at UC Santa Barbara (USA). His work is focused on measuring molecular interactions in biologic systems, including membrane physics, transport and chemistry in confinement. He uses and develops electrochemical single molecule atomic force microcopy, the surface forces apparatus, and optical tweezers.

Tanja Vidakovic-Koch is head of the Electrochemical Energy Conversion Group at the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics of Complex Technical Systems in Magdeburg, Germany. She studied chemical engineering at the Faculty of Technology and Metallurgy in Belgrade, Serbia, and received her PhD from Otto von Guericke University (OVGU) in Magdeburg, Germany. The focus of her research is on the development and analysis of various electrochemical processes. Some examples are hydrogen chloride electrolysis, electroenzymatic processes, low temperature fuel cells and more recently water electrolysis. Her other focus is the development of advanced electrochemical methods for monitoring and diagnosing various electrochemical processes. Examples include non-linear and concentration-frequency analyses. She also lectures on fuel cell technology and electrochemical process engineering at OVGU. 

Professor in the school of Mechanical Engineering at Tel-Aviv University and the head of the µ/nano-fluidics laboratory. Gilad completed his PhD (2008) at Tel-Aviv University, his MSc (1999) and BSc (1994, Summa Cum Laude) studies in Mechanical Engineering at the Technion, and an additional MSc (2003) in Electrical Engineering in Tel-Aviv University. Between 2007-2009 he was a postdoc research associate in the University of Notre Dame in the Chemical and Biomolecular department. Between 2009 and 2021 he was an associate professor in the faculty of Mechanical Engineering at the Technion – I.I.T and since 2021 he is a full Professor at Tel-Aviv University. His research interests lie in the area of electrokinetics in micro- and nano-fluidics, iontronics, electrokinetic separation, active (self-propelling) particles, micro- and nano-robots and lab-on-a-chip devices.