Category Archives: 2016

Collaboration publications about semiconductors and upconverting nanoparticles

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Have a look at our latest collaboration publications, from the end of 2016 and the beginning of 2017. One is about Mg doped AlGaN semiconductor crystals and its properties and the other about disintegration of upconverting nanoparticles.

Mäkelä, J., Tuominen, M., Nieminen, T., Yasir, M., Kuzmin, M., Dahl, J., Punkkinen, M., Laukkanen, P., Kokko, K., Osiecki, J., Schulte, K., Lastusaari, M., Huhtinen, H., and Paturi, P., Comparison of Chemical, Electronic, and Optical Properties of Mg-Doped AlGaN, J. Phys. Chem. C 120 (2016) 28591–28597.
Read online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpcc.6b09248

Lahtinen, S., Lyytikäinen, A., Päkkilä, H., Hömppi, E., Perälä, N., Lastusaari, M., and Soukka, T., Disintegration of Hexagonal NaYF4:Yb3+,Er3+ Upconverting Nanoparticles in Aqueous Media: The Role of Fluoride in Solubility Equilibrium, J. Phys. Chem. C 121 (2017) 656-665.
Read online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpcc.6b09301

Congratulations, Mika!

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Yesterday, Mika Lastusaari was awarded with a “Research act ’16” award for taking us into a new level with our research on inorganic solid state materials and also because of his tireless guidance and hard work.

Congratulations, Mika, your award is well deserved! We are eagerly waiting for the next years to come (and of course the victory dinner).

Christmas greetings and December doodahs

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So it is Christmas.

December has been running ahead like a reindeer in spotlight but it has been good. During this month we’ve had the pleasure to party with our collaborative groups in the 3rd floor, Materials Chemistry Research Group, Detection Tehcnology group and Physical Chemistry. You can check the picture proofs from MCRG news site (here!). As a proper chemists, Esa-Pekka and Pasi manufactured us a fantastic Chemis-TREE for the party that you can see in our Christmas card on the right.

During the year 2016 we’ve had the pleasure to host two Post Docs, Liana and Zé, and now it is their time to head back to home. We’ve had a blast having you here and we hope you had fun times as well. As a departure gift we decided to award them with Civis IMC Honoris Causa so they can come back whenever they want.

The honorary citizenship was also awarded to our long time friend and collaborator from Brazil, Prof. Lucas C.V. Rodrigues whom we recieved as a Christmas present to sooth the departing ache and to sparken up our lives for few weeks.

We want to wish Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to everyone! Our 2016 has been fantastic with great collaborators, heaps of good publications and as a cherry on top, Teros defence. We hope the next year will be as prosperous as the one ending!


Congratulations Tero!

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Tero successfully defended his thesis yesterday, congratulations for reaching this huge milestone!

We had a pleasure to host his opponent Dr hab. Dariusz Hreniak for one day and celebrate together this achievement in good company and with great food. Thank you Tero for the great party and good luck for your career in the future – we’re sure it will be bright!

Tero will defend his thesis on 14.12.

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MSc Tero Laihinen will have his doctoral thesis defence on Wednesday 14th of December at 12 o’clock in the lecture hall Arcanum 1.

The title of the thesis is “Lanthanide doped NaYF4 up-conversion luminescence materials” and focuses on improving the co-precipitation synthesis procedure and modification of the up-conversion luminescence color of the materials.

Mr. Laihinen has been working in our group during his doctoral studies and is supervised by Adj. Prof. Mika Lastusaari. During his work he has improved the manufacturing process and proved that it is possible to obtain efficient up-conversion luminescence from multiple lanthanide doped materials.

Thesis in Doria web archive: Thesis
Väitöstiedote (in Finnish): Tiedote

Collaboration publications about clays, nanorods and biocomposites.

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We have some new collaboration articles, one about clays as a support material, one about ZnO nanorods and third about biocomposite of bioactiveglass and cellulose. Check them out below!

Jäppinen, L., Jalkanen, T., Sieber, B., Addad, A., Heinonen, M., Kukk, E., Radevici, I., Paturi, P., Peurla, M., Shahbazi, M-A., Santos, H.A., Boukherroub, R., Santos, H., Lastusaari, M., and Salonen, J., Enhanced Photoluminescence in Acetylene-Treated ZnO Nanorods, Nanoscale Res. Lett. (2016) 11:413.
Read online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s11671-016-1627-y

Sobhana SS., L., Mehedi, R, Malmivirta, M., Paturi, P., Lastusaari, M., Dirtu, M. M., Garcia, Y., and Fardim, P., Heteronuclear nanoparticles supported hydrotalcites containing Ni(II) and Fe(III) stable photocatalysts for Orange II degradation, Appl. Clay Sci. 132-133 (2016) 641-649.
Read online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.clay.2016.08.016

Wang, X., Cheng, F., Liu, J., Smått, J-H., Gepperth, D., Lastusaari, M., Xu, C., and Hupa, L., Biocomposites of copper-containing mesoporous bioactive glass and nanofibrillated cellulose: Biocompatibility and angiogenic promotion in chronic wound healing application, Acta Biomater. 46 (2016) 286-298.
Read online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.actbio.2016.09.021

New publication about learning approaches

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If you’re interested in teaching and learning you can check out this new publication about students learning approaches by Mika and his collaborators.

Lastusaari, M., Laakkonen, E., and Murtonen, M., ChemApproach: validation of a questionnaire to assess the learning approaches of chemistry students, Chem. Educ. Res. Pract. 17 (2016) 723-730.
Read online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1039/C5RP00216H

New publication: Persistent luminescence in layered nanosilicates

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Check out our new publication about non-doped nanosilicates and their persistent luminescence! Congrats Hellen on your first publication!

Santos, H.S., Lastusaari, M., Laihinen, T., Viinikanoja, A., Brito, H.F., Rodrigues, L.C.V., Swart, H.C., and Hölsä, J., Persistent luminescent non-doped layered nanosilicate, Mater. Today: Proc. 3 (2016) 2822–2830.
Read online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.matpr.2016.06.032