CINSaT Autumn Colloquium attracts numerous visitors with exciting lectures and poster contributions on current research highlights from biology, chemistry, physics and engineering sciences.

On Wednesday, October 19, 2016, the time had come again: CINSaT had invited to the annual autumn colloquium at the University of Kassel's Heinrich-Plett-Strasse location. With exciting presentations on current research topics from biology, chemistry, physics and engineering, the auditorium was offered a wide range of topics in the field of interdisciplinary nanostructure research. In addition, the colloquium offered the unique opportunity to gain an insight into the research activities of the new partner university in Jyväskylä (Finland) within the framework of the newly created Erasmus student exchange program in the field of nanostructure sciences.

At the beginning, the auditorium was warmly welcomed by the new CINSaT spokesperson Prof. Dr. Johann Peter Reithmaier, who also gave a short introduction to the auditorium. The audience again included numerous professors, doctoral candidates as well as bachelor and master students from various disciplines. This was followed by a total of three scientific presentations by the invited external guest speakers with a reference to nanotechnology.

The first part of the lecture series was opened by Prof. Dr. Dario Anselmetti, who has held a chair for experimental biophysics and applied nanosciences at Bielefeld University since July 2000, with the topic "Single-Molecule Biophysics: From Catch-bond Interaction to Nanopore Translocation". After the lecture ended with an exciting discussion round, the participants could already use the break after the lecture to get to know each other.

In the second part of the lecture series, Prof. Dr. Mika Pettersson from the University of Jyväskylä first presented current research results on the topic "Optical patterning of graphene by two-photon oxidation". The application-oriented lecture on the targeted modification of the physical properties of graphene was followed by a captivating presentation by Prof. Dr. Janne Ihalainen on "The functional mechanism of phytochromes, the eyes of bacteria and plants", also from the University of Jyväskylä. This was the first time that both guest speakers offered an overview of the research activities of the partner university in Jyväskylä in the context of the newly established Erasmus programme at a public colloquium in Kassel.

The event was rounded off by a new poster session following the lecture series. The catering was provided by the Studentenwerk Kassel University. During the poster session, participants had the opportunity to engage in stimulating scientific discussions and to obtain information about current research projects within the CINSaT.

Finally, this year's jury - consisting of CINSaT members Prof. Dr. Martin E. Garcia, Prof. Dr. Cyril Popov and Prof. Dr. Bernd Witzigmann - awarded the prizes for the 3 best poster contributions (1st place: tablet, 2nd place: external hard drive, 3rd place: wireless presenter). Before awarding the prizes, the jury explicitly pointed out the extraordinarily high quality of the poster contributions, which has continuously increased over the past years. In addition, a new record was set at this year's Autumn Colloquium with 46 poster contributions. This year, the poster "New Porous Uranium Scavengers" by Dana Bloß and Eireen Käkel was awarded first place by the poster jury. This is the first time that two authors of a poster have been awarded for their outstanding contribution. Second and third place went to Marlene Adrian with her poster "Transmission Electron Diffraction on a really free standing heterostructure and analysis of the resulting Moiré pattern" and Harmen Hawer with his presentation on "Cooperation of tRNA and diphthamide modifications in mRNA translation?".