september 2-4, 2026
Prague summer school of nonlinear spectroscopy
Anton attends the Summer School of Nonlinear Spectroscopy organized at Charles University in Prague. Besides going deep on 2D spectroscopy and learning about Feynman diagrams and pathways in the Liouville space, Anton presents his work as a poster and wins the Best Poster Award. Congratulations to Anton!
september 3, 2026
Ig Nobel prize ceremony
Having dried off after our adventures in the waters of the Rhine, we put our academic mantles back on and joined the official delegation of the Zurich Interinstitutional Commission for the Advancement of Questionable Chemistry, Improbable Research, and Other Unforeseen By-Products, representing our Department at the IgNobel Prize ceremony, hosted in Zurich for the first time. Lots of fun!
september 3, 2026
group outing in graubÜnden
We teamed up with the Hamm group to brave the white waters of the Vorderrhein, passing through the spectacular Ruinaulta – the Swiss Grand Canyon. Despite the dry summer, the conditions were great. Intensely exhilarating white-water rafting followed by a delicious barbecue was thoroughly enjoyed by all!
september 1, 2026
bogdan is appointed as assistant professor
A new chapter for our group at the Department of Chemistry at the UZH begins, with new projects and challenges ahead.
August 17, 2026
Anton receives A Hans E. Schmid foundation fellowship
Named after the distinguished Swiss chemist Prof. Dr. Hans Eduard Schmid, who succeeded Nobel laureate Paul Karrer as director of the Institute of Organic Chemistry at the University of Zurich, the fund is dedicated to fostering the development of young scientists at the UZH. The fellowship supports researchers in the broad field of organic chemistry and is awarded every two years.
With this support, Anton’s synthetic efforts in developing of tailored microscopic electric-field sensors, married with detailed spectroscopic investigations, will continue. Congratulations, Anton!
August 2-7, 2026
Gordon vibrational spectroscopy conference
GRC Vibrational Spectroscopy conference has taken place in New Hampshire. The topic of this edition was “Structure and Dynamics on Multiple Length and Time Scales”. Bogdan gave an invited talk on our C–H hydrogen bonding work. It was a great conference, and the traditional lobster dinner did not disappoint.
Massive thanks to Jahan and Juli for the excellent and highly successful program, and for the invitation!
JuLY 17, 2026
Enola's Goodbye party
All good things come to an end… Enola’s internship with us has unfortunately reached its end. Over the past two months, she succeeded in making 3 new tailor-made molecules, learned and did a lot of spectroscopy, and generally had a lot of fun in the lab (and also on the football and volleyball fields, where she was a real asset to our team in the ChemCup tournament!).
Enola now returns to ENS Paris-Saclay to continue her studies. We wish her all the best and hope to see her again!
JuLY 13-17, 2026
Telluride workshop in Colorado
Bogdan gives an invited talk at the Telluride workshop on Advances of Multidimensional Vibrational Spectroscopy in Water, Biology and Materials Science.
Big thanks to the organizers for invitation to discuss science at such a beautiful place!
June 22-26, 2026
CMDS Conference in Singapore
The 2026 edition of the Coherent Multidimensional Spectroscopy conference takes place at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. Bogdan gives a talk on the dynamics of strong proper C–H hydrogen bonds.
Huge thanks to the entire Organizing Committee and Howe Siang Tan in particular, for the excellent organization and the opportunity to present our latest results.
And the special durian & mangosteen session was the envy of any conference!
May 28, 2026
JACS Au Cover!
Our recent paper on C–H hydrogen bonding is featured on the cover of JACS Au!
In an era of hyper-realism, AI-generated imagery, and deep fakes – where anything can be made to look like a real-life photograph – we went a different route… There is something deeply satisfying about watching the artwork come to life in real time in a truly old-school way.
Amazing 12-year-old Zlata Korotchenko has made this happen.
May 27, 2026
Marco's Defense and Group Lunch
Marco defends his Bachelor’s thesis today, and we go for a Vietnamese group lunch at Hang’s. Delicious stuff (and truly Vietnamese portions)!
May 26, 2026
New Group Member!
Enola De Maio-Levy from the École Normale Supérieure Paris-Saclay joins us for a research internship. She will be working with us through the summer on development of new probes.
May 20, 2026
COLLABORATOR'S Visit
Prof. Alexei Kananenka from the University of Delaware (Newark, USA) visits us for Anton’s annual PhD Committee Meeting and fruitful debate.
We continued discussions while enjoying proper Swiss fondue!
May 12-13, 2026
Academic Visitor
Dr. Krupa Ramasesha from Sandia National Lab (Livermore, USA) visits us and gives a fantastic Department Seminar on photodynamics of iron carbonyls and energetic materials tracked with state-of-the-art fs broadband IR and XUV probes.
We continued discussions while hiking Mount Rigi!
May 11, 2026
New Group Member!
Fabio Rodigari makes a comeback to our lab to start his Master’s thesis!
Welcome back, Fabio!
May 11, 2026
Website is Live
Our new group website is now live! More information and updates will be added over the coming days and weeks. Stay tuned!
May 6, 2026
Paper published!
Our first study on alkyne C-H bonds is published today in JACS Au! Using a combination of mid-IR, NMR, and ultrafast broadband THz spectroscopy across 50+ solvation environments and supported by AIMD simulations and SAPT quantum calculations we show that C-H can be a strong proper hydrogen bond donor. Not only does it hydrogen bond to atoms, but also to aromatic π-systems and even single non-polar C=C bonds. Through systematic analysis we devised a purely experimental approach to decompose the electric field effects from non-electrostatic components to H-bonding in these bonds.
May 4, 2026
SEMINAR at EMPA
Bogdan gives a seminar at EMPA in Dübendorf (Laboratory of Transport at Nanoscale Interfaces). Warm thanks to Mirjana Dimitrievska for the invitation and hosting. Very interesting discussions and lots of opportunities for collaboration using their amazing nanoscale fabrication and engineering techniques!
April 21, 2026
SEMINAR at the University of Geneva
Bogdan gives a seminar at the Department of Physical Chemistry at the University of Geneva. Thanks a lot for the invitation and hosting – so good to be back!