On Monday, February 2, 2026, our department celebrated a double feast. Our doctoral students Dávid Hovančík and Jiří Volný defended their doctoral dissertations. Dávid defended his thesis on "Orbital Moment-driven Anisotropy and Spin Dynamics in van der Waals Magnets," while Jiří's thesis was titled "Ferroic properties of layered materials".
Dávid joined our Department in 2020 through the Erasmus exchange program from the University of Prešov. During his stay, he worked on his diploma thesis entitled “Magnetic Phase Diagrams of Antiferromagnets“. He began his Ph.D. studies at our department in 2021. His dissertation was focused on the interplay between orbital magnetism, anisotropy, and spin excitations in low-dimensional magnetic systems. Dávid does not limit himself to experimental work alone. He actively engages with theoretical approaches and is not hesitant to apply demanding methods, including density functional theory calculations, crystal-field multiplet simulations, and model descriptions of magnetic excitations. Following the completion of his Ph.D., David successfully secured a postdoctoral position at the University of Basel (Switzerland) in the Poggio Laboratory since November 2025.
Jiří began working at our department in 2018 as part of his bachelor's thesis. He started by implementing microfabrication of samples using FIB for the purpose of studying heavy fermion systems. He subsequently improved this methodology during his master's thesis, in which he focused on the study of antiferromagnets for spintronic applications. As part of his doctoral thesis, he focused on the study of slip ferroelectricity in crystals with an incommensurate structure. He works at the Advacam company since summer 2025.
We congratulate both of our graduates and wish them great success in their new career!
