“Photonic leaf” the winning picture of our FOTICMAB 2018 photo contest

Our traditional photo contest, FOTICMAB, is already a consolidated activity and receives every year a high participation. This year, we had three categories: scientific, artistic and“ICMAB moments”. The artistic category was the one with the highest participation(48 photos), followed by our most favourite scientific category (19 photos) and the recovered “ICMAB moments” with10 photos.

The winner of the scientific category is the photo you can see above; “Photonic leaf” byCristiano Matricardi. “Rainbow“, byLaia Soler won the artistic category, and“With a smile you work better!” byAdriana Kyvik won the “ICMAB moments” category. The three winners are all PhD researchers at the Institute. The winner of each cateogory received a smartbox to enjoy a dinner for two.

Let’s see the story behind each one of the winning and finalist photos:

Scientific Category

First prize: Photonic leaf, by Cristiano Matricardi

“We printed photonic nanocrystals based on cellulose on the skeleton of a leaf. The picture is done with a normal camera. The rest of the leaf is removed with sodium hydroxide, and the different colors are obtained by the different geometry and spacing of the photonic crystal nanopattern, which interacts differently with the incident light.”

First finalist: The city, by Cristiano Matricardi

“This photo was a little bit of an accident. It is done with an optical microscope. We place a thin film of silica nanoparticles (5-8 nm) mixed with gold nanoparticles (50 nm) forming like a gel. We then place a glass on top and when the gel starts drying, it cracks, forming these curious pattern, which look like streets of a big city.”

Second finalist: Lava flakes, by Francesco Silvestri

“My picture is an AFM image (5 um size) representing dendritic islands of pentacene covered with a dopant molecule, a fullerene derivative.”

Artistic Category

First prize: Rainbow, by Laia Soler

“Vinicunca Mountain is located in the Peruvian Andes. The rainbow is drawn by different minerals sedimented separately according to their weight along 24 millions of years. It had been an unexplored place until three years ago, to get to this point it takes a day's walk to 5000 meters of altitude!”

First finalist: Unity is strength, by Bernat Bozzo,

“When we see castles, we almost always look at the old house and rarely at the pineapple. The mixture of apparent chaos of hands and the geometric order that guards the base of the castle, is photographically speaking, as much or more powerful than the castle itself. The photo was taken in Plaça de Sant Domènec de Manresa, during this year's Palm Sunday events.”

and Sunrise in the horizon, by Carles Llavina

“This photo was taken with my compact camera when the sun was rising over the horizon in a remote spot of the northern Scotland, in a solitary beach of Collieston. Being a morning person has its rewards!”

Second finalist: Bada-boom!, by Bernat Bozzo

“The Manresa traffic light is always a light show, noise and gunpowder guaranteed. One of the most awaited moments is the arrival at the Main Square, where a spectacular fire is lit. Seeing her move towards you makes it even more impressive! The photo is from the edition 2018 of this focus, within the events of the Festa Major de Manresa.”

ICMAB moments category

First prize: With a smile you work better!, by Adriana Kyvik

“This image portrays the daily life in our office; in this case we have a visit of an exmember of the office, who is inspired and decides to take a picture of us. We smile when seeing him almost laying on the floor trying to focus our image through the handle of the mug. With no doubt, working is better when smiling!”

First finalist: Metastability, by Judit Tomsen

“This photo was taken in an improvised way, at lunchtime in ICMAB dinning room. Small moments of relaxation before going back to work! (…Or maybe there is a hidden message and it represents the “TO DO” list of a predoc student…?)”

Second finalist: Shadows, by Anna May-Masnou

“I see these shadows everyday at work: the figures from the MATGAS building, watching us all day, checking our behavior, our acts. It was a sunny day, indeed, and I decided to immortalize them in a picture, so it’s me who can watch them now every day.”