The Nanobrücken 2026 conference took place from April 8 to April 10 in Leoben and provided a platform for scientific exchange in the field of micro- and nanomechanics. It highlights the international visibility of materials research in Leoben.
The event was organized by staff of Montanuniversität Leoben and the Erich Schmid Institute of Materials Science of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, in cooperation with Bruker. The organizational leadership was led by Megan Cordill from the Erich Schmid Institute, as well as Verena Maier-Kiener and Michael Tkadletz from the Chair of Functional Materials and Materials Systems at Montanuniversität Leoben
The event was a great success and attracted many participants from numerous countries.
As part of the conference, two early-career researchers from Leoben achieved outstanding success:
Magdalena Kirchmair received the award for Best Poster. Her contribution, entitled “In situ nanoindentation and XRD study of the hydrogen permeation barrier performance of MoNbTaWZr high entropy coatings,” was particularly convincing due to the combination of experimental methods used to analyze high-entropy coatings with respect to their hydrogen barrier performance.
Stefan Zeiler received the “Best Student Talk Award” for the best presentation. In his talk, “Revealing the brittle-to-ductile transition through temperature-dependent dynamic nanoindentation,” he presented a new method for measuring the brittle-to-ductile transition of materials based on temperature-dependent dynamic nanoindentation.
