Considering the year of the Portugal-France Season 2022 and with the support of the French Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs, the French Ministry of Culture, the Camões Institute – Institute of Cooperation and Language and the Office of Cultural Strategy, Planning and Evaluation (GEPAC), the Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation of France (MESRI) and the French Academy of Sciences awarded four Prix Tremplin Mariano Gago awards. Four scientific pairs were awarder with 84.000 euro. In particular, Professor Marta Fajardo, professor of the Department of Physics (DF) and researcher of the Institute of Plasmas and Nuclear Fusion (IPFN), and Professor Hamed Merdji, with the NanoXIMAGES project. The project proposed has practical application in the aria of nanotechnologies, aiming to prove that it is possible to reconstruct an X-ray image of an object through a process with incoherent light. This technique has a strong applicability for the area of medicine and biology.

Marta Fajardo also leads a project funded by the European Innovation Council, NanoXCAN, from which NanoXIMAGES now derives. “This is a simpler project, in which we see the absorption contrast (see what is opaque and what is not) depending on the color with which we are lighting, the wavelength of the X-rays and try to prove this new concept of incoherent image by diffraction (physical phenomenon that occurs when a wave encounters an obstacle, creating a widening of the waves, spreading them in all directions)”, she explains.

Strengthening bilateral research cooperation between two Franco-Portuguese teams and promoting their continuation and expansion within a 2-year research project was the main objective of awarding these awards. The selection criteria were based on the quality of the preliminary results of the collaboration and scientific excellence of the project, the quality of the candidates and laboratories involved, the added value to be provided through bilateral collaboration, and future collaboration prospects. The projects were selected by an international jury coordinated by MESRI, the French Academy of Sciences and the Lisbon Academy of Sciences, composed of French and Portuguese scientists. The official award ceremony will take place on June 21, 2022 at the Grand Hall of the French Academy of Sciences.

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