Project acronym FeMiT
Project Ferrites-by-design for Millimeter-wave and Terahertz Technologies
Researcher (PI) MartI GICH
Host Institution (HI) AGENCIA ESTATAL CONSEJO SUPERIOR DEINVESTIGACIONES CIENTIFICAS
Country Spain
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), PE8, ERC-2018-COG
Summary Robust disruptive materials will be essential for the “wireless everywhere” to become a reality. This is because we need a paradigm shift in mobile communications to meet the challenges of such an ambitious evolution. In particular, some of these emerging technologies will trigger the replacement of the magnetic microwave ferrites in use today. This will namely occur with the forecasted shift to high frequency mm-wave and THz bands and in novel antennas that can simultaneously transmit and receive data on the same frequency. In both cases, operating with state-of-the-art ferrites would require large external magnetic fields incompatible with future needs of smaller, power-efficient devices.
To overcome these issues, we target ferrites featuring the so far unmet combinations of low magnetic loss and large values of magnetocrystalline anisotropy, magnetostriction or magnetoelectric coupling.
The objective of FeMiT is developing a novel family of orthorhombic ferrites based on ε-Fe2O3, a room-temperature multiferroic with large magnetocrystalline anisotropy. Those properties and unique structural features make it an excellent platform to develop the sought-after functional materials for future compact and energy-efficient wireless devices.
In the first part of FeMiT we will explore the limits and diversity of this new family by exploiting rational chemical substitutions, high pressures and strain engineering. Soft chemistry and physical deposition methods will be both considered at this stage.
The second part of FeMiT entails a characterization of functional properties and selection of the best candidates to be integrated in composite and epitaxial films suitable for application. The expected outcomes will provide proof-of-concept self-biased or voltage-controlled signal-processing devices with low losses in the mm-wave to THz bands, with high potential impact in the development of future wireless technologies.
Summary
Robust disruptive materials will be essential for the “wireless everywhere” to become a reality. This is because we need a paradigm shift in mobile communications to meet the challenges of such an ambitious evolution. In particular, some of these emerging technologies will trigger the replacement of the magnetic microwave ferrites in use today. This will namely occur with the forecasted shift to high frequency mm-wave and THz bands and in novel antennas that can simultaneously transmit and receive data on the same frequency. In both cases, operating with state-of-the-art ferrites would require large external magnetic fields incompatible with future needs of smaller, power-efficient devices.
To overcome these issues, we target ferrites featuring the so far unmet combinations of low magnetic loss and large values of magnetocrystalline anisotropy, magnetostriction or magnetoelectric coupling.
The objective of FeMiT is developing a novel family of orthorhombic ferrites based on ε-Fe2O3, a room-temperature multiferroic with large magnetocrystalline anisotropy. Those properties and unique structural features make it an excellent platform to develop the sought-after functional materials for future compact and energy-efficient wireless devices.
In the first part of FeMiT we will explore the limits and diversity of this new family by exploiting rational chemical substitutions, high pressures and strain engineering. Soft chemistry and physical deposition methods will be both considered at this stage.
The second part of FeMiT entails a characterization of functional properties and selection of the best candidates to be integrated in composite and epitaxial films suitable for application. The expected outcomes will provide proof-of-concept self-biased or voltage-controlled signal-processing devices with low losses in the mm-wave to THz bands, with high potential impact in the development of future wireless technologies.
Max ERC Funding
1 989 967 €
Duration
Start date: 2019-05-01, End date: 2024-04-30
Project acronym LArcHer
Project Breaking barriers between Science and Heritage approaches to Levantine Rock Art through Archaeology, Heritage Science and IT
Researcher (PI) Ines DOMINGO SANZ
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITAT DE BARCELONA
Country Spain
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH6, ERC-2018-COG
Summary LArcHer project aims at pioneering a new and more comprehensive way of understanding one of Europe’s most extraordinary bodies of prehistoric art, awarded Unesco World Heritage status in 1998: Levantine rock art (LRA). The ground-breaking nature of the project relies on combining a multidisciplinary (Archaeology, Heritage Science and IT) and multiscale approach (from microanalysis to landscape perspectives) to gain a holistic view of this art. It also aims at closing existing gaps between science and heritage mainstreams, to better understand the values and threats affecting this tradition and bring about a change in the way we understand, care, use and manage this millenary legacy. LArcHer aims are: a) Use cross-disciplinary knowledge and methods to redefine LRA (i.e. new dating techniques to refine chronology, new analytical methods to understand the creative process); b) Use LRA as a proxy to raise new questions of global interest on the evolution of creative thinking and human cognition (i.e. the timing and driving forces behind the birth of anthropocentrism and visual narratives in the history of prehistoric art); c) Develop new research agendas to set off complementary goals between science and heritage and define best practices for open air rock art conservation and management.
Spread across Mediterranean Iberia, LRA is the only European body of figurative art dominated by humans engaged in dynamic narratives of hunting, violence, warfare, dances and so forth. These scenes are unique to explore past social dynamics, human behaviour and cultural practices. As such, it is the only body of European rock art with potential to answer some of the new questions raised by LArcHer.
Key to LArcHer are the systematic recording and analysis of the art through 3D Digital technologies, management and data storage systems, GIS, physicochemical analysis of pigments and bedrock and comparative analysis with other major bodies of art with equivalent developments.
Summary
LArcHer project aims at pioneering a new and more comprehensive way of understanding one of Europe’s most extraordinary bodies of prehistoric art, awarded Unesco World Heritage status in 1998: Levantine rock art (LRA). The ground-breaking nature of the project relies on combining a multidisciplinary (Archaeology, Heritage Science and IT) and multiscale approach (from microanalysis to landscape perspectives) to gain a holistic view of this art. It also aims at closing existing gaps between science and heritage mainstreams, to better understand the values and threats affecting this tradition and bring about a change in the way we understand, care, use and manage this millenary legacy. LArcHer aims are: a) Use cross-disciplinary knowledge and methods to redefine LRA (i.e. new dating techniques to refine chronology, new analytical methods to understand the creative process); b) Use LRA as a proxy to raise new questions of global interest on the evolution of creative thinking and human cognition (i.e. the timing and driving forces behind the birth of anthropocentrism and visual narratives in the history of prehistoric art); c) Develop new research agendas to set off complementary goals between science and heritage and define best practices for open air rock art conservation and management.
Spread across Mediterranean Iberia, LRA is the only European body of figurative art dominated by humans engaged in dynamic narratives of hunting, violence, warfare, dances and so forth. These scenes are unique to explore past social dynamics, human behaviour and cultural practices. As such, it is the only body of European rock art with potential to answer some of the new questions raised by LArcHer.
Key to LArcHer are the systematic recording and analysis of the art through 3D Digital technologies, management and data storage systems, GIS, physicochemical analysis of pigments and bedrock and comparative analysis with other major bodies of art with equivalent developments.
Max ERC Funding
1 991 178 €
Duration
Start date: 2019-10-01, End date: 2024-09-30
Project acronym MAGNESIA
Project The impact of highly magnetic neutron stars in the explosive and transient Universe
Researcher (PI) Nanda Rea
Host Institution (HI) AGENCIA ESTATAL CONSEJO SUPERIOR DEINVESTIGACIONES CIENTIFICAS
Country Spain
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), PE9, ERC-2018-COG
Summary The gravitational wave window is now open. It is then imperative to build quantitative models of neutron stars that use all the available tracers to constrain fundamental physics at the highest densities and magnetic fields. The most magnetic neutron stars, the magnetars, have been recently suggested to be powering a large variety of explosive and transient events. The enormous rotational power at birth, and the magnetic energy they can release via large flares, put the magnetars in the (yet) hand-wavy interpretations of gamma-ray bursts, the early phases of double neutron star mergers, super-luminous supernovae, hypernovae, fast radio bursts, and ultra-luminous X-ray sources. However, despite knowing about 30 magnetars, we are lacking a census of how many we expect within the pulsar population, nor we have robust constraints on their flaring rates. The recent discovery of transient magnetars, of magnetar-like flares from sources with measured low dipolar magnetic fields and from typical radio pulsars, clearly showed that the magnetar census in our Galaxy is largely under-estimated. This hampers our understanding not only of the pulsar and magnetar populations, but also of them as possibly related to many of Universe’s explosive events. MAGNESIA will infer a sound Magnetar Census via an innovative approach that will build the first Pulsar Population Synthesis model able to cope with constraints/limits from multi-band observations, and taking into account 3D magnetic field evolution models and flaring rates for neutron stars. Combining expertise in multi-band observations, numerical modeling, nuclear physics, and computation, MAGNESIA will solve the physics, the observational systematic errors, and the computational challenges that inhibited previous works, to finally constrain the spin period and magnetic field distribution at birth of the neutron star population.
Summary
The gravitational wave window is now open. It is then imperative to build quantitative models of neutron stars that use all the available tracers to constrain fundamental physics at the highest densities and magnetic fields. The most magnetic neutron stars, the magnetars, have been recently suggested to be powering a large variety of explosive and transient events. The enormous rotational power at birth, and the magnetic energy they can release via large flares, put the magnetars in the (yet) hand-wavy interpretations of gamma-ray bursts, the early phases of double neutron star mergers, super-luminous supernovae, hypernovae, fast radio bursts, and ultra-luminous X-ray sources. However, despite knowing about 30 magnetars, we are lacking a census of how many we expect within the pulsar population, nor we have robust constraints on their flaring rates. The recent discovery of transient magnetars, of magnetar-like flares from sources with measured low dipolar magnetic fields and from typical radio pulsars, clearly showed that the magnetar census in our Galaxy is largely under-estimated. This hampers our understanding not only of the pulsar and magnetar populations, but also of them as possibly related to many of Universe’s explosive events. MAGNESIA will infer a sound Magnetar Census via an innovative approach that will build the first Pulsar Population Synthesis model able to cope with constraints/limits from multi-band observations, and taking into account 3D magnetic field evolution models and flaring rates for neutron stars. Combining expertise in multi-band observations, numerical modeling, nuclear physics, and computation, MAGNESIA will solve the physics, the observational systematic errors, and the computational challenges that inhibited previous works, to finally constrain the spin period and magnetic field distribution at birth of the neutron star population.
Max ERC Funding
2 263 148 €
Duration
Start date: 2019-06-01, End date: 2024-05-31
Project acronym MarsFirstWater
Project The physicochemical nature of water on early Mars
Researcher (PI) Alberto Gonzalez Fairen
Host Institution (HI) AGENCIA ESTATAL CONSEJO SUPERIOR DEINVESTIGACIONES CIENTIFICAS
Country Spain
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), PE9, ERC-2018-COG
Summary Concepts of large bodies of glacial ice and liquid standing water, a robust hydrological cycle, and a rich Martian history of climate change are part of the current consensus model for early Mars. However, questions still poorly constrained include: a precise understanding of the inventory of water during the first billion years of Mars history and its early evolution on both global and local scales; whether liquid or solid H2O dominated, for what duration of time and where the water resided; what were the host-rock weathering rates and patterns and the physicochemical parameters defining such interactions; what specific landforms and mineralogies were generated during those periods; and what implications all these processes had on the possible inception of life on Mars. These fundamental questions represent large uncertainties and knowledge gaps. Therefore, a quantitative understanding of the basic characteristics of water on early Mars is very much needed and is the focus of this proposal.
This application outlines a plan for my research in the next five years, and explains how I propose to fully characterize the aqueous environments of early Mars through a quantitative and truly interdisciplinary investigation. Spacecraft mission-derived datasets will be consistently used to test hypotheses through paleogeomorphological reconstructions, geochemical modeling, mineralogical studies, and astrobiological investigations. The derived results will produce hard constraints on the physical evolution, chemical alteration and habitability of surface and near-surface aqueous environments on early Mars. The planned investigations will benefit from the combination of working with first-hand data from ongoing Mars missions and with the state-of-the-art laboratory tools at the host institution. The final expected result will be a complete understanding of the physicochemical nature of water on early Mars, also opening new paths for the astrobiological exploration of the planet.
Summary
Concepts of large bodies of glacial ice and liquid standing water, a robust hydrological cycle, and a rich Martian history of climate change are part of the current consensus model for early Mars. However, questions still poorly constrained include: a precise understanding of the inventory of water during the first billion years of Mars history and its early evolution on both global and local scales; whether liquid or solid H2O dominated, for what duration of time and where the water resided; what were the host-rock weathering rates and patterns and the physicochemical parameters defining such interactions; what specific landforms and mineralogies were generated during those periods; and what implications all these processes had on the possible inception of life on Mars. These fundamental questions represent large uncertainties and knowledge gaps. Therefore, a quantitative understanding of the basic characteristics of water on early Mars is very much needed and is the focus of this proposal.
This application outlines a plan for my research in the next five years, and explains how I propose to fully characterize the aqueous environments of early Mars through a quantitative and truly interdisciplinary investigation. Spacecraft mission-derived datasets will be consistently used to test hypotheses through paleogeomorphological reconstructions, geochemical modeling, mineralogical studies, and astrobiological investigations. The derived results will produce hard constraints on the physical evolution, chemical alteration and habitability of surface and near-surface aqueous environments on early Mars. The planned investigations will benefit from the combination of working with first-hand data from ongoing Mars missions and with the state-of-the-art laboratory tools at the host institution. The final expected result will be a complete understanding of the physicochemical nature of water on early Mars, also opening new paths for the astrobiological exploration of the planet.
Max ERC Funding
1 998 368 €
Duration
Start date: 2019-06-01, End date: 2024-05-31
Project acronym SUBSILIENCE
Project Subsistence and human resilience to sudden climatic events in Europe during MIS3
Researcher (PI) ANA B. MARIN-ARROYO
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSIDAD DE CANTABRIA
Country Spain
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH6, ERC-2018-COG
Summary Climate has long been proposed as a possible trigger-factor for the extinction of Neanderthals and the rapid colonization of Europe by Anatomically Modern Humans (AMH). Abrupt and acute oscillations of climate, as recorded from polar ice sheets, are particularly threatening as they can push ecosystems towards catastrophic outcomes. Under these conditions, the survival of a species critically depends on their adaptive skills. Understanding the exact role that these episodes could have had in the Middle to Upper Palaeolithic transition is then essential to unravel the real causes of Neanderthal demise and AMH success. To do this, SUBSILIENCE will identify the subsistence strategies adopted by both human species in response to those climatic changes at 20 key archaeological sites located across southern European peninsulas. By applying zooarchaeological and taphonomic analyses, the behavioural flexibility and resilience of each human species will be assessed. In addition, to enable effective testing, local terrestrial climatic and environmental conditions will be accurately reconstructed using stable isotopes from animals consumed, producing a unique, continuous and properly-dated general environmental framework, improving existing knowledge. Finally, to further explore the problem, an innovative procedure to estimate prey abundance, ecology and human behaviour, involving the estimation of the ecosystem carrying capacity, will be developed. This multidisciplinary and novel approach will provide, for the first time, accurate answers to questions concerning a) which particular subsistence patterns (if any) favoured AMH over Neanderthals while coping with the changing environment and b) the extent to which climatic oscillations affected Neanderthal extinction. In this, it will be of relevance to the study of Prehistory on a pan-European scale.
Summary
Climate has long been proposed as a possible trigger-factor for the extinction of Neanderthals and the rapid colonization of Europe by Anatomically Modern Humans (AMH). Abrupt and acute oscillations of climate, as recorded from polar ice sheets, are particularly threatening as they can push ecosystems towards catastrophic outcomes. Under these conditions, the survival of a species critically depends on their adaptive skills. Understanding the exact role that these episodes could have had in the Middle to Upper Palaeolithic transition is then essential to unravel the real causes of Neanderthal demise and AMH success. To do this, SUBSILIENCE will identify the subsistence strategies adopted by both human species in response to those climatic changes at 20 key archaeological sites located across southern European peninsulas. By applying zooarchaeological and taphonomic analyses, the behavioural flexibility and resilience of each human species will be assessed. In addition, to enable effective testing, local terrestrial climatic and environmental conditions will be accurately reconstructed using stable isotopes from animals consumed, producing a unique, continuous and properly-dated general environmental framework, improving existing knowledge. Finally, to further explore the problem, an innovative procedure to estimate prey abundance, ecology and human behaviour, involving the estimation of the ecosystem carrying capacity, will be developed. This multidisciplinary and novel approach will provide, for the first time, accurate answers to questions concerning a) which particular subsistence patterns (if any) favoured AMH over Neanderthals while coping with the changing environment and b) the extent to which climatic oscillations affected Neanderthal extinction. In this, it will be of relevance to the study of Prehistory on a pan-European scale.
Max ERC Funding
2 000 000 €
Duration
Start date: 2019-06-01, End date: 2024-05-31
Project acronym TRADITION
Project Long-term coastal adaptation, food security and poverty alleviation in Latin America
Researcher (PI) Andre Carlo COLONESE
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSIDAD AUTONOMA DE BARCELONA
Country Spain
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH6, ERC-2018-COG
Summary TRADITION aims to understand the long-term trajectory of human interaction with coastal resources and its legacy to present day small-scale fisheries in Latin America. Founded on traditional knowledge rooted in the past, small-scale fisheries are a crucial source of food and livelihood for millions of people worldwide, and play a pivotal role in poverty eradication in developing countries. A thorough recognition of the cultural and socio-economic significance of Latin American fisheries requires a temporal component that only archaeology and history can provide. TRADITION will investigate a 4000-year record of coastal exploitation in one of the world's most threatened tropical environments: the Atlantic forest of Brazil. We will draw together archaeological, palaeoecological, historical and ethnographic records to address fundamental questions that impinge upon our current understanding of the development of small-scale fisheries in this region. How did coastal economies adapt to the spread of agriculture? What was the impact of past climate and environmental changes on coastal populations? What was the impact of European colonisation of the Americas on the development of small-scale fisheries? What was the role of historical institutions and regulations in the negotiation between traditional and modern practices in small-scale fisheries? How have the historical practices and events shaped current small-scale coastal communities, and can this knowledge benefit current management strategies. The answers will help us understand how coastal economies responded to unprecedented societal and environmental changes by adapting their subsistence practices, technology and culture, while contributing to the foundation of coastal societies in Latin America.
Summary
TRADITION aims to understand the long-term trajectory of human interaction with coastal resources and its legacy to present day small-scale fisheries in Latin America. Founded on traditional knowledge rooted in the past, small-scale fisheries are a crucial source of food and livelihood for millions of people worldwide, and play a pivotal role in poverty eradication in developing countries. A thorough recognition of the cultural and socio-economic significance of Latin American fisheries requires a temporal component that only archaeology and history can provide. TRADITION will investigate a 4000-year record of coastal exploitation in one of the world's most threatened tropical environments: the Atlantic forest of Brazil. We will draw together archaeological, palaeoecological, historical and ethnographic records to address fundamental questions that impinge upon our current understanding of the development of small-scale fisheries in this region. How did coastal economies adapt to the spread of agriculture? What was the impact of past climate and environmental changes on coastal populations? What was the impact of European colonisation of the Americas on the development of small-scale fisheries? What was the role of historical institutions and regulations in the negotiation between traditional and modern practices in small-scale fisheries? How have the historical practices and events shaped current small-scale coastal communities, and can this knowledge benefit current management strategies. The answers will help us understand how coastal economies responded to unprecedented societal and environmental changes by adapting their subsistence practices, technology and culture, while contributing to the foundation of coastal societies in Latin America.
Max ERC Funding
1 877 107 €
Duration
Start date: 2019-09-01, End date: 2024-08-31
