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In combinatorics and ergodic theory, the decomposition into structured and random objects has been successfully exploited to prove density results and refinements. In both fields, nilsystems are the model for structured configurations. Recently, Kra, Moreira, Richter, and Roberson used dynamics in nilsystems to provide a density version of Hindman's theorem. In this talk, we delve into further sumset consequences for these two extreme cases and provide some examples of applications.
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\r\nBio: Prof. Shachar Richter is a faculty member in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Tel Aviv University, Israel, and the head of the department. He earned his PhD in Materials Science and Chemical Physics from the Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel. After graduation, he completed a postdoctoral fellowship and was later appointed an independent staff member (MTS) at Bell Laboratories and Agere Systems in New Jersey, USA.
\r\nIn 2001, he joined the School of Chemistry at Tel Aviv University, and in 2013, he moved to the newly established Department of Materials Science and Engineering. He was a visiting professor at Monash University in Australia in 2017 and a distinguished visiting scientist at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO). His diverse research area focuses in developing innovative materials from renewable resources, such as jellyfish-based composites for medical and cosmetic uses, as well as working in molecular and bioelectronics, bio-nanocomposites, and new patterning technologies.
\r\nProfessor Richter has held several public roles, including serving as department head, chair of the \"Advanced Materials\" Cathedra, leading the MSc program in Materials Science and Engineering at Tel Aviv University, acting as President of the Israel Vacuum Society (IVS), and chairing the chemistry committee of the Standards Institute of Israel. He also serves on the editorial boards of various journals. Some of his patents have been licensed and are in the process of being commercialized, and he has co-founded two startups.
The availability, diversity, and function of biological matter are inherently shaped by geography. Climate, ecosystems, agriculture, and food systems determine not only which biomass resources emerge across regions, but also the biological architectures and material opportunities they embody. In this presentation, biological matter is explored as a materials platform spanning plant tissues, fungal networks, marine organisms, and biomass-derived colloidal systems, with emphasis placed on how the organization and composition of such natural precursors can guide their engineering into sustainable material systems.
\r\nThemes of (i) biofabrication, using microbial precursors to generate guided assemblies across scales, (ii) natural fiber and bio-colloidal systems, considering their isolation and assembly into functional materials, and (iii) ecosystem integration, considering opportunities to address climatic and other environmental challenges, will be covered. Regarding the latter, examples including arid soil restoration, marine infrastructure remediation, and hybrid living materials are presented as case studies toward deployable systems. For bio-colloidal systems, their inherent advantages and limitations relative to synthetic colloidal systems will also be discussed.
\r\nUltimately, introducing sustainability into the material sector extends beyond precursor selection alone, as ecosystem integration and supply-chain considerations become increasingly critical – particularly as the regionalization of biomass circularization gains importance. The seminar concludes with a brief perspective on technology transfer and innovation as extensions of scientific research toward broader societal impact.
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\r\nDr. Blaise Tardy joined Khalifa University in January 2022 as an Assistant Professor. After graduating from École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in 2009, he obtained his Ph.D. in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering from The University of Melbourne in 2015 and was subsequently a research fellow at Aalto University from 2016 to 2022. His research bridges colloidal and interfacial sciences, bioengineering, and sustainable materials, with an emphasis on biological matter as a platform for engineering multiscale material systems. His work spans biofabrication, biomass-derived colloids, natural fibers, and sustainable materials obtained from biotechnology, agriculture, aquaculture, and food-system side streams, with applications linked to the growing circular bioeconomy. This interdisciplinary combination of expertise has led to highly recognized publications featured in international press releases and published in leading journals in materials and nanoscience. His broader objective is to connect fundamental science, innovation, and technology transfer toward deployable material systems with impact beyond the laboratory.
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Supercurrent diode effects have recently attracted much attention for their potential applications in superconducting logic circuits, rectification applications and also in the study of fundamental symmetries of the underlying superconducting order parameter. In this talk, I’ll introduce the idea of finite momentum Cooper pairing (FMCP) in systems with strong helical spin-momentum locking and how this can naturally give rise to non-reciprocity in superconducting critical currents namely the Josephson diode effect (JDE). I’ll describe our work establishing the presence of a large JDE due to FMCP in lateral Josephson junctions formed from centrosymmetric van der Waals type-II Dirac semimetals 1T-NiTe2 and 1T-PtTe2. A theoretical analysis based on a Ginzburg-Landau type model suggests that the FMCP introduces a phase difference between the first (Cooper pair) and second (Cooper quartet) harmonic supercurrents, which manifests as the JDE. Measurements of the JDE as a function of the in-plane magnetic field and half-flux quantum oscillations in the JDE are in good agreement with the predictions, indicating the presence of large second harmonic supercurrents in the junction. Surface modifications are shown to strongly enhance the supercurrents in the junction, nearly by a factor of two, indicating the strong contribution of the topological surface states to the supercurrent transport. Overall, 1T systems provide an interesting platform for exploring the interplay of FMCP, JDE and topological superconductivity.
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\r\nBio: Dr. Pranava Keerthi Sivakumar completed his Bachelors and Masters in Chemistry with a minor in Physics from the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, India in 2017. He then moved to Germany where he completed his Ph.D. at the Martin Luther University in Halle, graduating summa cum laude. During his Ph.D., he worked on studying the electrical transport properties of materials with non-collinear spin textures and unconventional superconductivity due to strong spin-orbit coupling. Most notably during his Ph.D., he uncovered the role of finite momentum pairing induced Josephson diode effect in topological materials with helical spin-momentum. He is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the NISE department in the Max Planck Institute of Microstructure Physics, focusing on the interplay of magnetization dynamics and supercurrent transport in superconductor-ferromagnet heterostructures.