V001 / JSI

A ceremonial event marking the 20th anniversary of the Slovenian Fusion Association (SFA) was held on 24 June at the ICJT, Jožef Stefan Institute. Founded in 2005, SFA is one of Europe’s leading groups in fusion research and an important partner in the EUROfusion programme. The event was opened by Prof. Dr. Barbara Malič, Deputy Director of the Jožef Stefan Institute, who emphasised that fusion research is strategically important for the Institute and represents a field with great potential for a sustainable energy future. Dr. Tomaž Boh, Director-General of the Directorate for Science and Innovation, highlighted the importance of Slovenia’s participation in international research. Dr. Boštjan Končar presented the development of SFA from a small group to a key European partner, as well as its achievements and projects. The keynote speaker, Dr. Gianfranco Federici, Programme Director of EUROfusion, underlined SFA’s strong integration into the European fusion programme and the contributions of Slovenian researchers to developing technologies for future fusion reactors.

Researchers Fabio Staniscia and Matej Kanduč from the Department of Theoretical Physics used computer simulations to reveal that surface-active molecules (surfactants) bind differntly to highly curved water interfaces—such as those found on nanometer-sized droplets and bubbles—compared to flat surfaces. This discovery challenges the long-standing assumption that interfacial behavior is independent of system size and offers important new insights into the behavior of colloidal systems at the nanoscale. Surfactants are among the most widely used chemical substances globally, present in cleaning products, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, food formulations, and many industrial applications. A better understanding of surfactant behavior at curved interfaces allows for more precise formulation of emulsions, foams, and other colloidal systems, and contributes to improved modeling of environmental phenomena like aerosol behavior and cloud formation. The study was published in the renowned Journal of Colloid and Interface Science and highlights how fundamental physical discoveries can shape our understanding and have far-reaching implications for science and technology.

Members of the High Energy Group Physics group of Theoretical Physics Department (F-1) have successfully organized international workshop Portorož 2025: Particle Physics from the Early Universe to Future Colliders, 21. - 25. April, bringing together leading physicists working on open problems of theory and phenomenology of particle physics, such as flavour puzzle, hierarchy problem, strong CP problem and axion-like particles, CP violation in the universe, role of effective theories. The goal was to explore key topics in elementary particle phenomenology and theory. We've had 50 invited talks which sparked lively discussions on the modern directions in theory and phenomenology of the Standard Model and beyond-the-Standard-Model scenarios in different physical settings: hadron colliders including LHC and future High-luminosity LHC, future high-energy colliders, high-intensity experiments probing flavour dynamics and CP violation, early universe and astroparticle phenomena. The workshop achieved its main goal of connecting experts from different particle physics subfields to discuss about the near and long-term future of the field.

On April 10th, 2025, we hosted the MAGNELIQ Symposium as part of the MAGNELIQ project, "A MAGNETO-ELECTRIC LIQUID – TO SENSE BETTER". The project is coordinated by Prof. Dr. Darja Lisjak and carried out by the Department of Materials Synthesis and Complex Matter in collaboration with partners from the Institute of Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences (Czech Republic), CNR-IOM (Italy), the University of Maribor, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Computer Science and Informatics (Slovenia), and the high-tech SME Prensilia SRL (Italy). The first part of the symposium, dedicated to the scientific community, featured presentations of key project results—most notably the development of novel soft magneto-electric materials, supported by theoretical modeling. In the second, application-oriented session, we demonstrated how these materials have been translated into advanced contactless sensor technologies, including a miniature magneto-optic angular position sensor and a force sensor designed for use in supportive medical robotics. These innovations represent a significant step toward the integration of smart materials into next-generation sensing systems, with promising potential for both scientific and industrial impact.