MNF Day 2023 in review
We brought together students, scientists, colleagues, and companies for our second annual open day at the Münster Nanofabrication Facility (MNF) in the Center for Soft Nanoscience (SoN) and Center for Nanotechnology (CeNTech). It was a dynamic day with over 120 attendees joining in hands-on workshops, tours, a poster session and a networking event sponsored by Pixel Photonics.
Talks
MNF day began with an update from Dr. Maik Stappers on new technologies coming soon to the MNF. In his fascinating keynote presentation, Professor Harald Fuchs covered the history of nanotechnology in Münster, detailing the efforts and visionary thinking that lead to financing and building the SoN and CeNTech and ultimately founding the MNF. Prof. Christos Gatsogiannis and Prof. Martin Salinga highlighted the innovative research and techniques coming out of the MNF and SoN Cryo-EM facility. And talks from guest speakers Dr. Olena Vertsanova from ZEISS Research and Dr. Reasat Fahim from Oxford Instruments gave us an in-depth look at applications using MNF tools manufactured by their companies.
Workshops
We did things differently this year, and added hands-on workshops and Q&A sessions to the schedule. Bruker and ZEISS, as well as our instrument managers, lead in-depth workshops on our tools, giving our scientists the opportunity to try new techniques first-hand. For those that wanted more detailed information on using their machines, Oxford Instruments and Raith held Q&A sessions in an open format. Finally, the workshop on practicing pitching your research, lead by REACH, was particularly popular.
Tours
Attendees also had the opportunity to tour our facilities, including our cleanroom and the new Cryo-EM facility here in the SoN. Our neighbor IONTOF gave us a rare chance to tour their company and see their machines in production!
Poster session
Thirty students were nominated by their professors to present their research in a poster session, held in CeNTech. Voted for by the attendees, the prize for the best poster went to Akhil Varri!
