October 14, 2022 Conferences and Workshops

The group at the PSI-K conference

The world’s largest conference in electronic structure this year is undoubtedly the Psi-k event. This summer it was held in the city of Lausanne, in Switzerland, on the shore of Lake Geneva.

This event brought together the active community in the field, in order to showcase and develop the latest developments in fundamental theory, algorithms and computer codes to understand, predict and design the properties and functions of materials.

This has been an intense week indeed for all the group. From early morning to late afternoon we spent our time searching for the most interesting talks on condensed matter physics, quantum chemistry, and thermodynamics, while making our way among the hundreds of people who attended the poster sessions. For us, the conference represented an incredible opportunity to share the room with talented scientists from all walks of life, while also having the opportunity to learn from their contributions and expertise.

We also had the opportunity to give our contribution to the conference. Antonella Meninno presented her work on metastable thedrahedral occupancy in palladium hydrides (https://arxiv.org/abs/2209.14), Francesco Belli presented his results on the correlation of superconducting temperature and properties of hydride superconductors (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41), Josu Diego showed his ongoing work on the effects of anharmonicity in the charge density wave in vanadium diselenide, while Yuewen Fang and Đorđe Dangić participated in the poster session with their work on superconductivity in doped barium superhydrides, and the calculation of the lattice thermal conductivity through the SSCHA.

However, the Psi-K conference was not only an opportunity to grow as scientists, but also an opportunity to visit Lausanne and the surroundings of Lake Geneva. We spent the nights visiting the city and trying the local food together with those we met at the conference. We had a great time with the people attending the conference. We would like to thank the organizers for the wonderful event.