The President of the Republic of Slovenia, Borut Pahor: "We have to find a way to make scientific achievements more popular"

The President of the Republic of Slovenia, Borut Pahor, together with Minister of Education, Science and Sport, Dr Jernej Pikalo, met with researchers Alenka Mertelj, Darja Lisjak, Martin Čopič and Miha Drofenik from the Jožef Stefan Institute, who discovered ferromagnetism in suspensions of magnetic platelets in liquid crystal.

In the conversation with the researchers, the President expressed his wish for people to understand the brilliance of this great and important discovery. "We have to find a way to make scientific achievements more popular. It should be our mission to make scientific achievements public, because this would give additional incentive and motivation to Slovenian scientists to achieve excellence," said the President, adding that "Our country is marked not only by its beauty, but also by the intelligence of its people. And this is our strategic resource." The President thanked his guests, who included Jadran Lenarčič, director of the Jožef Stefan Institute, for their work and wished them all the best in the future.

Alenka Mertelj, Darja Lisjak, Martin Čopič and Miha Drofenik discovered ferromagnetism in suspensions of magnetic platelets in liquid crystal and thus proved again that Slovenian scientists are part of the global elite. As the first in the world, they reported on their discovery in the prominent Nature magazine, which publishes the findings of the most important studies in the natural sciences and is, alongside Science, the most visible and eminent scientific magazine in the world. This achievement is the result of the cooperation between chemists, who synthesised magnetic nanoparticles of a particular shape, and physicists, who developed the technology to prepare a stable mixture of these particles with liquid crystal and proved its magnetic properties. This has yielded magnetic liquid crystal, which opens the possibilities of new uses, e.g. in optic devices, which can be guided by very small magnetic fields rather than external power. However, it will take some time before practical applications are developed.


Photo: Nebojša Tejić/STA