24 June 2026

Photo: Dimitra Spathara

Dr. Dimitra Spathara, a materials scientist specializing in computational thermodynamics and advanced alloy design, has been awarded a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship. She will carry out her project, called PureCuAlloys, within the research group of Prof. Dr. Konstantinos Nikolopoulos within the Cluster of Excellence Quantum Universe at the University of Hamburg. The fellowship will fund her work for two and a half years, with a total of €272,456.

Dimitra Spathara is joining a group whose work focuses on two closely connected areas: the direct search for light dark matter particles, and the development of detectors for both collider and rare-event search experiments. Her expertise in designing and modeling advanced materials is a natural fit for this work, as the sensitivity of these detectors depends heavily on the quality and strength of the materials they are built from.

Stronger Materials for the Search for Dark Matter

Some of the most sensitive detectors used in dark matter research rely on extremely pure copper, produced through a process called electroforming. This method creates copper with very few impurities, which is essential because impurities can interfere with the faint signals researchers are looking for. The drawback is that electroformed copper is relatively soft and not very strong.

Over the next two and a half years, Dimitra Spathara will work on solving this problem by developing new copper-based alloys that are both ultra-pure and mechanically stronger. Stronger materials mean detectors can be built larger or with less material overall, which increases their chances of detecting rare particle events.

Her approach combines computational modeling with materials science: by first identifying open questions in existing research, she will gather the data needed to predict how new alloys will behave before they are even built. This method should significantly speed up the development process.

The results of the project will feed directly into the construction of components for DarkSPHERE-30, a next-generation, fully electroformed detector designed to search for low-mass dark matter particles. Beyond fundamental physics, the materials design methods developed in this project could also be useful in industrial applications that depend on precisely controlled material properties.

As part of the fellowship, Dimitra Spathara will also complete a placement with the Swedish company Thermo-Calc Software AB, a leading developer of software for predicting materials properties. She joins Quantum Universe after a UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Fellowship at the University of Birmingham, bringing experience from both academic and industry settings, including a previous collaboration with Rolls-Royce.