🔬 Skoltech patents next‑generation optical sensor for selective vapor and gas analysis

Skoltech has been granted a patent for an optical sensor designed to detect vapors and gases, opening up new possibilities for the development of compact sensing systems for industrial applications, environmental monitoring, and medical diagnostics.

The key challenge facing most optical gas sensors is their lack of selectivity — they can detect changes in the refractive index of the surrounding medium, but are unable to identify which specific substance caused the change. The new Skoltech development is based on a combination of a Bragg mirror and a nanostructured thin metal film. Unlike most existing optical gas sensors, selectivity is achieved not through chemical reactions on the active surface, but through specially designed nanostructures that enable selective capillary condensation of gaseous substances.

More about the development:
🔹 in our cards;
🔹 in the article on the Skoltech website.

Skoltech is part of the VEB.RF group.

Today is World Breast Cancer Research Day.

The 18th day of the 8th month was chosen for a reason: the date symbolizes the statistics showing that 1 in 8 women and 1 in 833 men will face this diagnosis in their lifetime.

According to WHO, breast cancer remains the most common cancer among women in the majority of countries worldwide, with about 80% of cases occurring in patients with no specific risk factors other than sex and age. The choice of therapy and treatment effectiveness depend heavily on how quickly and accurately a tumor's molecular profile can be determined.

The Skoltech AI Center team, led by Svetlana Illarionova, is developing virtual staining algorithms. Using generative AI, the model turns standard tissue scans into comprehensive molecular tumor profiles in just a couple of hours, sparing doctors from waiting on traditional immunohistochemistry — a time-consuming, labor-intensive, and costly diagnostic gold standard.

These algorithms help evaluate key markers (ER, PR, HER2) and analyze the tumor's immune microenvironment from a standard histological slice. This solution is especially vital for remote regional clinics and centers that lack specialized, expensive equipment, ensuring that patients who may not be able to travel to major medical centers still have access to life-saving accurate diagnostics.

Svetlana’s project, "Intelligent Pathomorphology," won the international "Women for a Healthy Society" competition, and she received her award from Valentina Matvienko, Chairwoman of the Federation Council.

🔬 Skoltech researchers uncover how nanocoatings dissipate energy at the nanoscale to prevent failure

An international research team featuring Professor Alexander Korsunsky from the Skoltech Engineering Center has, for the first time, performed direct measurements of mechanical stresses at the contact between a diamond indenter and a complex nanostructured coating with a resolution of under 80 nanometers. Using synchrotron X‑ray nanodiffraction at the ESRF facility in Grenoble, the scientists showed that a multilayer coating made of ceramic ZrN with amorphous ZrCu interlayers dissipates elastic energy 30% more effectively than its monolithic counterpart, preventing crack propagation.

More about the study:

🔹 in our cards;
🔹 in the detailed article on the Skoltech website;
🔹 in the publication in Communications Materials (Springer‑Nature).

Skoltech is part of the VEB.RF group.

Today the world is watching a total solar eclipse — one of the rare moments when nature itself creates an almost perfect solar coronagraph.

And the timing is remarkable: we are near solar maximum, when the Sun’s corona is especially complex and extends in many directions.

The corona is not simply a beautiful halo around the Sun. It is the outer solar atmosphere where magnetic energy is stored and released, giving rise to some of the most powerful manifestations of solar activity: solar flares and giant magnetic clouds of plasma erupting from the Sun.

These events drive space weather, affecting satellites, navigation, communications, and other technological systems in space and on Earth.

We observe the corona every day with space-based coronagraphs. But a natural total eclipse gives us something extraordinary: the Moon precisely blocks the bright solar disk, revealing the corona from its innermost structures to spectacular rays stretching far into the sky. For a few minutes, we can actually see the vast atmosphere of our star with our own eyes.

The image shows the corona predicted for today’s eclipse by Predictive Science — the result of sophisticated data assimilation and magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) modeling of the Sun’s magnetic atmosphere.

It is a spectacular sight, but also a glimpse into the physics shaping our technological future.

“Understanding the Sun is not only about our curiosity to explore the world around us. It is also becoming increasingly important for our technological society. The better we understand the physics of our star, the better we can predict space weather and protect the technologies on which modern life depends.”

— Tatiana Podladchikova, Director of the Center for Engineering Systems and Sciences and Head of the Solar Physics and Space Weather Laboratory.

🏆 World #1 for the third consecutive year!

The Russian national school team has once again secured first place in the overall standings at the International Olympiad in Artificial Intelligence (IOAI 2026), held in Astana. The competition brought together a record-breaking 465 school students from 105 countries.

All eight members of our team returned with medals: 7 golds and 1 bronze! Artem Gorokhov became the absolute champion of the Olympiad.

A special source of pride for Skoltech is the contribution of Ilseyar Alimova, lead machine learning engineer at Skoltech AI Center, who helped train the team., who helped train the team. For two months, Ilseyar, alongside colleagues from Central University, the AI Alliance, and other expert organizations, guided the students through complex challenges in computer vision, large language models, robotics, and audio processing.

Huge congratulations to the students and the entire coaching team on this outstanding achievement! 🚀✨

🔬 Heat treatment boosts strength & ductility in 3D-printed aluminum bronze

Skoltech and State Marine Technical University researchers have found a way to optimize a copper-aluminum-iron alloy for 3D-printing heat exchangers used in electronics across aviation, rocketry, and electric vehicles.

Pure copper is notoriously difficult for infrared laser 3D printing, while alloying elements can introduce microstructural inhomogeneities. The team identified the optimal postprocessing regimen: heating to 500 °C creates a stable structure with a strong balance of strength and ductility. Lower temperatures (300–400 °C) actually made the material more brittle.

“3D-printed aluminum bronze offers a good combination of thermal properties and control over geometry, but suboptimal mechanical characteristics may result from the printing process. This is a concern particularly in electronics used in rockets and other vehicles subjected to shock and vibration,”

explains lead author Anastasia Filippova, a PhD student in Skoltech’s Mathematics and Mechanics program.

“3D-printed materials always differ in microstructure compared to those processed by other techniques. A conventional method like heat treatment will not necessarily work — it required fine-tuning of the heating parameters,”

notes the principal investigator of the study, Associate Professor Stanislav Evlashin from the Center for Materials Technologies at Skoltech.

📖 Read the full study in the Journal of Alloys and Compounds.

Skoltech is a VEB.RF group institution.