Imagine you could create a new material whose properties were tailored exactly to your application. While this is difficult for most of us, this is exactly the way Milan Sýkora works with his team. The renowned Slovak scientist focuses on the discovery of materials that enable the development of breakthrough technologies.

He brought valuable knowledge and experience from the USA, where he worked as a scientist and manager for over 25 years. Milan Sýkora says he had never planned to emigrate: „I always thought that I would learn something and come back to Slovakia and pass on my experience in a meaningful way. I wanted to return at an age where I could still work actively. Returning for pension didn't make much sense to me.“ However, for a long time there was not a good institute in Slovakia for him to return to. He therefore started talking to the Faculty of Natural Sciences of Comenius University Bratislava, where he once studied, and applied for a European ERA Chairs grant while still in the US. The team led by Milan Sýkora became only the second recipient of such a grant in the history of Slovakia.

Thanks to this support, he founded the Laboratory for Advanced Materials, which he still leads. Milan Sýkora's team specialises in the development of nanomaterials and other advanced materials. This interdisciplinary research covers chemistry, physics, biology and medicine. Currently, the research team is mainly focused on the study of inorganic nanocrystals, nanographenes and a group of materials called perovskites.

A large part of Milan Sýkora's research is focused on basic research, the results of which he publishes with his team and collaborators in peer-reviewed journals. This basic research leads to discoveries of the laws that determine the properties of materials. Milan Sýkora has co-authored approximately 70 articles in prestigious peer-reviewed journals and his work has been cited more than 4,400 times.

In addition to basic research, he also tests newly developed materials in applications such as more efficient solar cells, solar energy conversion and storage, and new technologies for medical diagnostics. „When we create interesting new materials or develop new methods of their preparation, we always look at the possibilities of their practical use. If there’s commercial potential, we try to protect the discovery by filing for a patent,“ he explains. Milan Sýkora is a co-inventor on five US patents and two European patent applications.

Despite his significant workload he still tries to find time to run, cycle, swim, play basketball and do racket sports.