We are pleased to announce that a collaborative research team including Dr. Vladislav Pokorný (FzU) and Martin Žonda from our department has received the 2026 ACS Nano Impact Award.
The award recognizes an outstanding scientific contribution published in ACS Nano and highlights the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration in advancing modern nanoscience and quantum technologies.
The awarded work, led by researchers from the University of Basel, Charles University, Czech Academy of Sciences and the University of Bern, demonstrated atomic-scale control of spin and charge states in radical molecules placed on superconducting surfaces. The study revealed how quantum phase transitions between singlet and doublet states can be driven by intermolecular interactions and showed that molecular assemblies can serve as reconfigurable functional units with switchable charge configurations.
Dr. Martin Žonda and Dr. Vladislav Pokorný were responsible for the theoretical interpretation and modeling of the observed phenomena. Their work provided the microscopic understanding of the experimental results and helped establish the mechanisms governing the interplay between superconductivity, electronic correlations, and molecular interactions in these nanoscale systems.
This achievement represents an important step toward the controlled design of quantum states in molecular platforms and demonstrates the power of close cooperation between experiment and theory in addressing fundamental challenges in quantum nanoscience.
We warmly congratulate all members of the collaboration on this prestigious award.
