Igor Popov's Bio

Brief Biography

igor was born in 1977, in Belgrade, Yugoslavia. He finished his primary school in 1992, officially as the best student of his generation. He attended the High School of Mathematics in Belgrade, which was an elite school in former Yugoslavia, and one of the few having modern computer equipment at that difficult time of civil wars in the country. He participated to local and regional competitions in physics, achieving first place at the Belgrade level. After graduation, he continued his studies in the department of Theoretical and Experimental Physics of Belgrade University. His diploma thesis was in the field of quantum computing, with title "Characterization of characteristic quantum circuits on superconducting quantum interference devices", for which he obtained a maximum mark. Then he moved to Dresden, Germany, where he started his Ph.D studies in the group of Prof. Gotthard Seifert. In the department of chemistry, he initiated the activity of electronic quantum transport in nanosystems, particularly in molybdenum chalcohalide nanowires. His calculations "predicted" some interesting features of the nanowires, especially their advantages with respect to the popular carbon nanotubes. Other interests include the investigation of liquid crystals using molecular dynamics, the, structural and electronic properties of MoS2 and ReS2 nanotubes, as well as the deposition of nanoclusters on substrate. He finished his Ph.D studies with Summa Cum Laude. On July, 14, he will be awarded the Prof.-Schwabe prize for his thesis "Electromechanical switch based on molybdenum chalcohalide nanowires". In May, 2009, he has started his first postdoctoral research in Trinity College Dublin, in the group of Prof. Stefano Sanvito. Currently he conducts the research in the field of spintronics, particularly the spin transfer torque and spin-current injection into organic semiconductors. Outside the university, he is interested in basketball, tennis, table tennis and hiking, likes sci-fi, thrillers and other flavours of movies and prefers older music from 60's to 80's.