March 19, 2024

João Coroa – ESR 2

João Coroa was born in Lisbon (Portugal) in 1994. He started his academic path in 2012 at NOVA School of Science and Technology to study Micro and Nanotechnology Engineering. Throughout his studies, he got the opportunity to go abroad and develop his skills regarding nanofabrication, thin-films, plasma physics and cleanroom environment, culminating in 2017 with a master thesis at Imec R&D. Afterwards, he came back to his home university as a research fellow to investigate thermoelectric materials on flexible substrates for one year. Then, he enrolled at CERN as a trainee to develop an amorphous carbon coating thin-film to be applied to certain sections of the beam screen of the accelerator (2019-2021).
Research Project
Large Scale production of deposited clusters on powders and electrodes for CO2 reduction

My research project is focused on the up-scaling technique for cluster production. Most of my investigation will be done at Teer coatings Ltd under the supervision of Dr. Jinlong Yin and Prof. Ewald Janssens (KU Leuven) where I will identify the most critical factor for the large-scale production of clusters and have a better understanding of the physical process that happens during the formation of the clusters. In addition, I will participate in several secondments where I will investigate and characterize the clusters by state-of-the-art techniques such as TEM and TPD. My PhD aims to explore new concepts and approaches that should be implemented in order to scale up the nano-clusters production and propose the most likely physical mechanism for the growth of clusters under extreme conditions.