Towards the bottom of the periodic table
Kristina Kvashnina leads the project TOP (Towards the bottom of the periodic table) funded by the European Research Council (ERC) through the research program - ERC Starting Grant. The project has received 1.5 million euros and will take place over the next 5 years from 1st of January 2018.
Welcome!
TOP group, funded by the European Research Council, is a part of the Rossendorf Beamline at The European Synchrotron (ESRF) in France, operated by the Institute of Resource Ecology at Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) in Germany. Most of the team members are based at ESRF, Grenoble, France.
We study fundamental physical and chemical properties of the f-electron systems (actinides and lanthanides) through the revelation of the electronic structure and we investigate the applications in which these systems play an important role. Our research is strongly oriented towards the new developments in the field of advanced X-ray spectroscopy methods.
On our website, you can read the latest news, info about our research activities and group members, and view a list of our publications.
Media about us
ESRF news - July 2019 Eccentricity at the bottom of the Periodic Table
The facinating bottom of the periodic table
Kristina Kvashnina | Humans of ESRF
ESRF to benefit from ERC grant for nanomaterials research
News
07.10.2019 - Anna is at Quanty workshop in Heidelberg, Germany
15.09.2019 - Evgeny is attending Migration 2019 conference in Kyoto, Japan
09.09.2019 - Meet Lucia and Evgeny at 21st Mendeleev congress in Saint Petersburg, Russia
26.08.2019 - Kristina and Ivan presented latest results on U minerals and PuO2 NPs at Goldschmidt2019 conference in Barcelona, Spain
10.06.2019 - Evgeny showed last results on PuO2 NPs at 7th RAD 2019 in Montenegro.
28.05.2019 - Kristina and Lucia gave talks about actinide oxide nanoparticles research at EMRS Spring Meeting 2019 in Nice, France.
15.04.2019 - Lucia will talk about "Modeling XANES of U⁵⁺ and U⁶⁺ in different local coordination geometries" at 49èmes Journées des Actinides (JdA-2019) in Erice, Italy.
14.03.2019 - We organized a workshop dedicated to the nuclear waste problems in USA, Germany and Russia at the Institute of Resource Ecology, HZDR. Invited speakers: Prof. Peter Burns (University of Notre Dame, USA), Prof. Vinzenz Brendler (HZDR, Germany), Prof. Stepan Kalmykov (Moscow state University, Russia)
06.11.2018 - Lucia and Kristina talk at ATAS Workshop in Nice, France.
11.09.2018 - Evgeny gives a talk at Pu Futures Conference in San Diego, USA.
12.08.2018 - Ivan had a poster presentation at Goldschmidt Conference in Boston, USA.
16.07.2018 - Lucia and Evgeny will present thire results at XAFS 2018 conference in Krakow, Poland.
08.06.2018 - Kristina talks about actinide and lanthanide chemistry at MINATEC Les Midis (300 participates), Grenoble, France
20.03.2018 - We will present new results on plutonium oxide nanoparticles at the upcoming 48 JDA 2018 conference in Portugal, 21-24th of March 2018.
24.03.2018 - Evgeny Gerber was awarded a medal for the "best young researcher's oral presentation" at the 48 JDA in Portugal on 24th of March 2018. Evgeny presented the results of a new experiment performed at the ROBL in February this year.
People
Dr. Habil. Kristina Kvashnina
Scientific background: Physicist
Special interests: Experimental and theoretical investigations of lanthanides and actinides by XANES, HERFD, XES and RIXS techniques.
Current status: ERC Group Head
After earning a MA degree in theoretical physics at Ural State University (Ekaterinburg, Russia) and a PhD degree in experimental physics at Uppsala University (Uppsala, Sweden) Kristina moved to Grenoble France, where she conducted pioneering research on actinide systems using advanced high energy resolution X-ray spectroscopy methods.
Profile on Research gateDr. Lucia Amidani
Scientific background: Physicist
Special interests: the use of XAS, XES and RIXS coupled with theoretical simulations to understand the elect4ronic structure of solid state materials
Current status: Postdoctoral Research Fellow
After her MA degree in solid state physics, Lucia joined the group of X-ray and Synchrotron radiation of Bologna University for her PhD and a first post-doctoral fellowship. After this experience focused on the use of XAS and XES to semiconductor systems, she moved to Grenoble and joined the ID26 beamline at ESRF to study lanthanides based luminescent materials with high energy resolution spectroscopy. From 2018 Lucia is involved in the theoretical understanding of actinide/lanthanide nanomaterials.
Profile on Research gateDr. Stephen Bauters
Scientific background: Chemist
Special interests: Energy dispersive detectors, beam line control, XRF MC-quantification, XAS, SPEC
Current status: Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Stephen received his PhD at Ghent University (Belgium) in a collaboration project with the ESRF CRG beam line BM26 DUBBLE, for which he constructed a polycapillary optics based confocal setup for XRF and XAS. He can often be found writing SPEC macros.
Profile on Research gateDr. Paul Estevenon
Scientific background: Chemist
Special interests: nuclear materials, actinide chemistry (especially plutonium), hydrothermal syntheses
Current status: Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Paul performed his PhD in collaboration between CEA Marcoule and ICSM on the synthesis of plutonium silicate and more generally AnSiO4 phases. Since October 2019, he is based on the Atalante facility at CEA Marcoule (France).
Profile on Research gateEvgeny Gerber
Scientific background: Chemist
Special interests: Actinides and lanthanides chemistry, environmental radioactivity
Current status: PhD student
Evgeny is a PhD student from Moscow State University (Russia), working on synthesis and characterization of the actinide and lanthanide nanomaterials using laboratory and synchrotron analytical methods.
Profile on Research gateJurij Galanzew
Scientific background: Chemist
Current status: PhD student
Jurij is from Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (Germany). His MS study at ROBL of ESRF in 2018 was focused on understanding the electronic structure of thorium systems by different theoretical and experimental approaches. Currently Jurij is a shared PhD student at KIT and HZDR for a period of three years (2018-2021).
Anna Volkova
Scientific background: Chemist
Current status: Trainee (01/07/2019 - 01/11/2019)
Anna is from Moscow State University (Russia). Her project is dedicated to theoretical investigation of the electronic structure of uranium systems at the U M4 edge.
Past Group Members
Irina Sinenko
Status: Trainee (01/03/2018 - 01/09/2018)
Dr. Ivan Pidchenko
Status: Postdoctoral Research Fellow
(01/01/2018 - 01/09/2019) Profile on Research gate