Institute of High Pressure Physics

The most innovative Polish projects were awarded during the Final Gala of the 26th edition of the “Polish Product of the Future” competition, organized by the Polish Agency for Enterprise Development (PARP), which took place on December 2, 2025, in Warsaw.

This year's edition saw 152 projects submitted, many of which already show high implementation potential. Three main prizes, ten distinctions, and special prizes were awarded.

The distinction in the category “Joint product of the future of higher education and science institutions and entrepreneurs” was awarded to the technology: Innovative electrodes for the deep electroerosion drilling process with increased service life, developed by the Institute of High Pressure Physics of the Polish Academy of Sciences and GEMET Elżbieta Czerwieniak. The technology uses severe plastic deformation to improve the properties of the electrode material, which allows for a significant increase in the efficiency of conventional electroerosion machining processes.

We would like to congratulate all the winners and honorees, especially the team from the Laboratory of Plastic Deformation Under High Pressure - Dr. Mariusz Kulczyk, Prof. IWCPAN, Dr. Jacek Skiba, and their colleagues from GEMET Elżbieta Czerwieniak company.

The catalog of winners of the 26th edition of the Polish Product of the Future Competition is available at the following link.

A public defense of the doctoral dissertation of Mateusz Hajdel, M.Sc. Eng., will be held on 15 December 2025 (Monday) at 11:00 a.m. in the seminar room of the Institute of High Pressure Physics, Polish Academy of Sciences, in Warsaw, 29/37 Sokołowska St.

Dissertation title: „Operating principle of wide (In,Ga)N quantum wells grown by plasma-assisted molecular beam epitaxy”

Full text of the announcement

The dissertation and reviews are available here.

The well-known, graphite-like hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) is currently experiencing a major renaissance as an essential material in 2D electronics, an extremely efficient UV emitter, and an excellent neutron detector. To fully explore and exploit the potential of hBN, a top-quality material is required, preferably in the form of a single crystal of a size suitable for research and applications.

At our Institute, we are working on the crystallization of hBN under high pressure. Recent results have been just published in the paper Crystal Growth of hBN from Ni and Ni–Cr Solutions at High N2 pressure, B. Sadovyi, P. Sadovyi, A. Nikolenko, V. Strelchuk, B. Turko, Y. Eliyashevskyy, I. Yahniuk, M. Marocko, J. Eroms, I. Petrusha, S. Krukowski, S. Porowski, and I. Grzegory, ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces 17, 63610 (2025). We describe there the processes and results of hBN crystal growth from B and N solutions in liquid nickel and a Ni-Cr mixture, under a nitrogen pressure of 1000-1500 bar.

The transparent, colorless hBN crystals showed excellent structural quality and homogeneity, confirmed by Raman spectrum mapping. The width of the E_2g Raman peak corresponding to the vibrations of atoms in the plane of the hBN layer did not exceed 8 cm^-1, which is evidence of the very high crystalline quality of the obtained hBN. Analysis of optical absorption spectra confirmed that hBN is a crystal with a skewed energy gap. Increased by a factor of 30-40 as a result of compression, the solubility of nitrogen in metal allowed for the production of crystals significantly thicker (up to 30 μm) than at atmospheric pressure.

In order to further verify the quality of the obtained single crystals, our collaborators from the University of Regensburg exfoliated thin hBN flakes and used these flakes to construct graphene devices. In graphene layers surrounded by hBN layers, spectacularly high mobility of both electrons and holes was obtained, exceeding 21.2 m²·V–1·s–1 at 230 K.

The paper summarizes part of the results of the research project “Long-term program of support of the Ukrainian research teams at the Polish Academy of Sciences carried out in collaboration with the U.S. National Academy of Sciences with the financial support of external partners” Grant No. PAN. BFB.S.BWZ.369.022.2023, entitled “Influence of high N2 gas pressure on crystallization mechanisms and physical properties of h-BN”.

Hydrostatic extrusion (HE) of pure titanium effectively boosts its mechanical strength and wear resistance without the need to add alloying elements such as Al, V or Nb. It strongly refines the microstructure but creates anisotropy due to fibrous grains aligned with the extrusion direction, limiting its use in components subjected to forces perpendicular to these fibers.

A recent study from our Institute addresses this issue by applying equal-channel angular pressing (ECAP) before HE. The Institute of High Pressure Physics (IHPP) PAS developed an ECAP station for room-temperature deformation, avoiding heating that reduces strain hardening. ECAP of titanium at ambient temperature is rare in literature, and combining ECAP with HE for titanium remains largely unexplored. Recent study by M. Kulczyk et al. Using a Combination of ECAP and HE Processes to Produce Isotropic Ultrafine-Grained Titanium Materials 2025, 18, 5194 presents an optimized ECAP + HE process that produces ultrafine-grained/nanocrystalline titanium with isotropic mechanical properties. Structural changes were analyzed using TEM, statistical image analysis, and SEM-EBSD techniques.

Resolving the strong anisotropy in ultrafine-grained titanium unlocks new prospects for its commercial use, especially in medical implants.

Inverse pole figure (IPF) maps of TiGr2 microstructure after hydrostatic extrusion (HE) (a,b) and combined ECAP + HE (c,d) processing.