COMANA project funded jointly by the EU and Greek Government to manufacture and study the behaviour of complex magnetic nanostructures consisting of a central core and surrounded by one or various shells were studied for applications ranging from nanomedicine to magnetic storage devices and logic processing devices (magnetic quantum dot cellular automata (MQCD)). Based on our knowledge and expertise we developed a novel multi-scale theoretical approach that modelled nanomagnetic systems all the way from the fundamental properties of the isolated nanoparticles through to the real behaviour of interacting magnetic nanoparticle (MNP) assemblies and their processes.

An important component of the proposed research was experimental validation of the theoretical models. The outcomes of the proposed project were the development of experimentally tested theoretical models, which predicted conditions for the synthesis of materials with properties suitable for specific technological applications and enabled the interpretation of the mechanisms that are responsible for the observed behaviour of the materials.

The proposed project:

a) Gave the applicant the opportunity to work closely with the nanomagnetism group in Leicester, which is world-leading in the production and study of complex spin nanostuctures,

b) Extend the experience on electronic structure calculations for nanomaterials through her collaboration with a member of the group, expert in the use of electronic structure calculations on magnetic clusters,

c) Be the basis for a long term collaboration between the experimental group working on nanomagnetism in the Institute of Materials Science and the Computational Condensed Matter Physics group of the same Institute in NCSR “Demokritos”.