An international independent committee has awarded the Rudolf Lukeš Prize for 2020 to Pavel Jelínek for his research of chemical properties of molecular structures on solid surfaces. It was the scanning microscopy techniques being developed with the potential to find application in organic chemistry that captured attention of the assessors.
This year’s Rudolf Lukeš Prize by the Czech Chemical Society has been awarded to physicist Pavel Jelínek. Photo: Experientia Foundation
An international independent committee has awarded the Rudolf Lukeš Prize for 2020 to Pavel Jelínek for his research of chemical properties of molecular structures on solid surfaces. It was the scanning microscopy techniques being developed with the potential to find application in organic chemistry that captured attention of the assessors.
"For me personally, the Rudolf Lukeš Prize is a pleasant surprise, and mainly the confirmation that our research goes beyond the area of solid states physics,” said Pavel Jelínek, the head of the Nanosurf Lab and the Surfaces and Molecular Structures department of the FZU.
The development of scanning microscopy, which currently enables the imaging of the chemical structure of planar molecules on solid surfaces with unprecedented spatial resolution, is a clear example of one of the interdisciplinary intersections of basic research at the FZU.
According to Pavel Jelínek, on-surface chemistry allows the formation of compounds that cannot be prepared in solutions by traditional methods. "It is also possible to prepare individual polymers and work with them without encountering the problem of their solubility. This allows us to study not only chemical reactions at the level of individual molecules, but also to examine their properties,” added Pavel Jelínek.
Pavel Jelínek's scientific team has a lot of research plans for the future. "In the near future, we plan to investigate the possibilities of detecting magnetic states and quantum phase transitions in 1D molecular chains. For this purpose, we are currently testing magnetic tips based on nicklocene. We also intend to implement the electron spin resonance technique in our low-temperature microscope in the near future,“ Pavel Jelínek revealed. The plan also is to investigate the possibility of inducing chemical reactions using light. This would pave the way for scientists to prepare molecular systems on isolators, an area almost unexplored to date.
Pavel Jelínek received his doctorate from the Czech Technical University in the field of Physical and Materials Engineering, and joined the group of Professor Fernando Flores at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid in Spain. He then became a visiting professor at the Graduate School of Engineering in Osaka University in Japan. Pavel Jelínek is a member of the editorial committees of the international scientific journals Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter. He also works as a researcher at the Regional Center for Advanced Technologies and Materials (RCPTM) at the Faculty of Science, Palacky University in Olomouc. For his scientific results, he received the Academic Award (2016), the Award of the Czech Academy of Sciences (2012) and the Otto Wichterle Award (2007).
The Rudolf Lukeš Prize is awarded by the Czech Chemical Society's Expert Group of Organic, Bioorganic and Pharmaceutical Chemistry in cooperation with the Experientia Foundation. Its aim is to award scientists for an outstanding collection of original work in the field of organic, bioorganic and pharmaceutical chemistry published in prestigious international journals in the last 5 years. In this way, the Czech Chemical Society seeks to raise awareness of excellent personalities of science and at the same time motivate the scientific community to increase excellence. The personal award received by the successful applicant is 100 000 CZK.