prof. Artur Bednarkiewicz

Artur Bednarkiewicz received his MSc Eng. in Physics and Biomedical Engineering from the Wroclaw University of Technology in Wroclaw, Poland, in 1993 and a PhD, habilitation and Institute professorship in Physics from the Institute of Low Temperature and Structure Research, Polish Academy of Sciences, in 1998, 2013 and 2015 respectively. After postdoctoral research in the European Commission Joint Research Centre, Italy, in December 2008 he returned to ILT&SR PAS and simultaneously established and leaded an interdisciplinary team NAOMIS with the Wroclaw Research Center EIT+ focusing on Nanoparticle Assisted Molecular Imaging and Sensing. He is now afiliated with Polish Academy of Sciences as a full professor and vice director of the Institute. His current interdisciplinary research focuses on

• optical nano(bio)spectroscopy, imaging, sensing;
• novel designs of lanthanide doped nanoparticles biolabels towards photon avalanche, stimulated emission depletion microscopy, thermometry, biosensing;  
• upconversion FRET (bio)sensing;
• reservoir computing using photon avalanching materials;
• optical and spatial light modulation engineering;
• pure physics, spectroscopy and chemistry of lanthanide doped materials.

Full CV.

EDUCATION and PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES:

• 01.2024-          a member of Scientific Council of Wroclaw Doctoral School, ILT&SR PAN
• 09.2023 -          member and vice-director of Material Science Committee within Wroclaw Division of Polish Academy of Sciences 2023-2026
• 02.2023 -          deputy director for scientific affairs in Institute of Low Temperatures and Structure Research, Polish Academy of Sciences, Wrocław, Poland
• 05.2022  Head of Division of Biomedical Physicochemistry 
• 07.2020  Full professor in Institute of Low Temperatures and Structure Research, Polish Academy of Sciences, Wrocław, Poland
• 01.2017-05.2018  Director of Scientific Department in Wroclaw Research Centre EIT+
• 04.2015  professorship in Institute of Low Temperatures and Structure Research, Polish Academy of Sciences, Wrocław, Poland
• 06.2014  member of Young European Academy
• 06.2013  habilitation on „Luminescent properties of lanthanide doped fluoride nanoluminophores”, Poland
• 2011-04.2019  Researcher at Polish Center for Technology Development (previously Wroclaw Research Centre EIT+) Wrocław, Poland
• 2009-  Researcher  in Institute of Low Temperatures and Structure Research, Polish Academy of Sciences, Wrocław, Poland
• 2005-2008  post-doc position in European Commission - Joint Research Centre, Institute for Health and Consumer Protection, Nanomaterials and Molecular Imaging, Ispra, Italy
• 2003-2005  Researcher in Institute of Low Temperatures and Structure Research, Polish Academy of Sciences, Wrocław, Poland
• 2003  Ph.D.– ‘Spectral and laser properties of Yb³⁺ doped crystals and glasses’ - Institute of Low Temperatures and Structure Research, PAN, Wrocław
• 1998  M.Sc. – ‘Generation of 2nd harmonic of Neodymium Laser Pumped with Laser Diode’ - Institute of Low Temperatures and Structure Research, PAN, Wrocław
• 1993-1998  Technical University of Wrocław, Poland – Department of Basic Problems of Technology, Application of Electronics in Medicine, 1993-1998

RECENT GRANTS:

• Novel anti-Stokes lanthanide-doped nanoparticles and multicolor FRET mechanisms for single-molecule DNA sequencing (LantaSEQ), a co-PI, NCN OPUS-WAVE UNISONO (03.2022-03.2025)
• Sensitized Photon Avalanche Emission in lanthanide doped colloidal core-shell nanoparticles: novel materials for superresolution imaging (SPA), a PI, NCN OPUS22 (08.2022-08.2026)
• Photon avalanche in nano and micro- inorganic crystals doped with lanthanide ions, a PI, NCN OPUS 2018/31/B/ST5/01827 (09.2019-08.2022)
• Theoretical and Experimental Devising Photon Avalanche Emission Nanoparticles, a PI, Molecular Foundry #5973, U.S. Department of Energy National Laboratory Operated by the University of California
• “Nanoparticles-based 2D thermal bioimaging technologies”, NanoTBTech FETOPEN-01-2016-2017 within H2020-FETOPEN-2016-2017, a PI of Polish partner of the consortium, 09.2018-09.2021
• „Photon Avalanche based Optical Thermometry” / „Termometria luminescencyjna bazująca na lawinowej emisji fotonów”, a researcher, NCN OPUS 14 2017/27/B/ST5/02557 PLN 2018-2021
• „Multifunctional Optical Trapping and Optical Microrobots to study localized hyperthermia of cells and cellular spheroids from primary cel cultures” / „Opracowanie multifunkcjonalnych szczypiec optycznych i mikrorobotów do badania wpływu zlokalizowanej hipertermii na komórki i sferoidy nowotworowe uzyskane z hodowli pierwotnych”, NCN OPUS 14 2017/27/B/ST7/01255, 2018-2021, PI of one of the partners of the consortium
• “The European Upconversion Network From the Design of Photon-upconverting Nanomaterials to (Biomedical) Applications” – EU COST Action CM1403, co-applicant, Short Term Scientific Mission Manager
• “Lanthanide doped colloidal core-shell nanoparticles: synthesis and active modulation of spectral properties”, PI, NCN, Poland, 4.2013-4.2018,
• „Exploitation of electrical, spectral and optical methods in biodetection and bioimaging” – EIT+ Wrocław Research Centre, POIG task leader (1.2011-6.2015)
• Lanthanide doped nanoluminophores as active elements In biosensors, task leader (2010-2012), grant MNISW NN 507 58 49 38

MAJOR COLLABORATIONS:

Professor Bednarkiewicz collaborates intensively with scientists from Poland (Prof. Sebastian Maćkowski and Dr. Dawid Piątkowski - UMK, Prof. Sławomir. Drobczyński - PWr, Dr. Radek Łapkiewicz - UW); Europe (Prof. Daniel Jaque-Madryt Univ., Spain, Prof. Luis Carols – Aveiro Univ., Portugal; Prof. Tero Soukka - Turku Univ., Finland), America (Prof. Niko Hilderbrandt, McMaster Univ., Canada; Prof. Fiorenzo Vetrone - INRS, Canada, Prof. James P. Schuck – Columbia Univ. USA; Dr. Emory Chan and Dr. Bruce Cohen, Berkley Molecular Foundry, USA), and China (Prof. Lining Sun – Shanghai Univ., China).

SELECTED PAPERS:

1. M.Szalkowski, A.Kotulska, M.Dudek, Z.Korczak, M.Majak, L.Marciniak, M.Misiak, K.Prorok, A.Skripka, P.J.Schuck, E.M.Chan* and A.Bednarkiewicz* Advances in the photon avalanche luminescence of inorganic lanthanide-doped nanomaterials, Chem. Soc. Rev., 2025, Advance Article
2. M.Majak*, M.Misiak, A.Bednarkiewicz* The mechanisms behind the extreme susceptibility of photon avalanche emission to quenching, Mater. Horiz., 2024,11, 4791-4801 
3. Magdalena Dudek*, Zuzanna Korczak, Katarzyna Prorok, Oleksii Bezkrovnyi, Lining Sun, Marcin Szalkowski, Artur Bednarkiewicz*, Understanding Yb³⁺ sensitized photon avalanche in Pr³⁺ co-doped nanocrystals: modelling and optimization, Nanoscale, (2023), 18613-18623, DOI: 10.1039/d3nr0440
4. A Bednarkiewicz*, M Szalkowski, M Majak, Z Korczak, M Misiak, S Maćkowski, All-Optical Data Processing with Photon Avalanching Nanocrystalline Photonic Synapse, , Adv Mater. 2023, e2304390. doi: 10.1002/adma.202304390
5. Agata M. Kotulska, Aleksandra Pilch-Wróbel, Satu Lahtinen, Tero Soukka* and Artur Bednarkiewicz*, Upconversion FRET quantitation: the role of donor photoexcitation mode and compositional architecture on the decay and intensity based responses, Light: Science & Applications (2022)11:256
6. Magdalena Dudek, Marcin Szalkowski, Małgorzata Misiak, Maciej Ćwierzona, Artiom Skripka, Zuzanna Korczak, Dawid Piątkowski, Piotr Woźniak, Radosław Lisiecki, Philippe Goldner, Sebastian Maćkowski, Emory M. Chan, P. James Schuck, and Artur Bednarkiewicz* Size-Dependent Photon Avalanching in Tm3+ Doped LiYF4 Nano, Micro, and Bulk Crystals  Adv. Optical Mater. 2022, 2201052
7. L. Sun, Y. Xie, Y. Song, G. Sun, P. Hu, A. Bednarkiewicz, L.Sun Lanthanide-doped Heterostructured Nanocomposites toward Advanced Optical Anti-Counterfeiting and Information Storage Light Sci Appl 11, 150 (2022).
8. A. Bednarkiewicz, M. Szalkowski, Photon avalanche in nanoparticles goes multicolour, News&Views, Nature Nanotechnology, (2022) .
9. A. Pilch-Wrobel, A. M. Kotulska, S. Lahtinen, T. Soukka, A. Bednarkiewicz, Engineering architecture of core-shell upconverting lanthanide-doped nanoparticles for optimal donor in resonance energy transfer, Small, 18 (2022) 2200464.
10. A. Pasciak, A. Pilch-Wróbel, L. Marciniak, P. J. Schuck, A. Bednarkiewicz, Standardization of light-to-heat conversion efficiency of colloidal nanoheaters, ACS Appl Mater Interfaces 13 (2021) 44556–44567.
11. M. Szalkowski, M. Dudek, Z. Korczak, C. Lee, L. Marciniak, E. M. Chan, P. J. Schuck, A. Bednarkiewicz, Predicting the impact of temperature dependent multi-phonon relaxation processes on the photon avalanche behavior in Tm³⁺ : NaYF₄ nanoparticles, Opt Mater X 12 (2021) 100102.
12. E. Ortiz-Rivero, K. Prorok, I. R. Martín,R. Lisiecki, P. Haro-González, A. Bednarkiewicz, D. Jaque, Laser  Refrigeration by an Ytterbium Doped NaYF₄ Microspinner, Small 17 (2021) 2103122
13. C. Lee, E. Xu, Y. Liu, A. Teitelboim, K. Yao, A. Fernandez-Bravo, A. Kotulska, S. Hwan Nam, Y. Doug Suh, A. Bednarkiewicz, B. E. Cohen, E. M. Chan, P. J. Schuck, Giant nonlinear optical responses from photon avalanching nanoparticles, Nature, 592 (2021) 7841
14. A. Bednarkiewicz, J. Drabik, K. Trejgis, D. Jaque, E. Ximendes, L. Marciniak, Luminescence based temperature bio-imaging: status, challenges and perspectives, Applied Physics Reviews 8 (2021) 011317.
15. A. Bednarkiewicz, E. Chan, K. Prorok, Enhancing FRET biosensing beyond 10 nm with photon avalanche nanoparticles, Nanoscale Adv. 2 (2020) 4863-4872.
16. K. Trejgis, A. Bednarkiewicz, L. Marciniak, Engineering excited state absorption based nanothermometry for temperature sensing and imaging, Nanoscale 12 (2020) 4667-4675.
17. A. Bednarkiewicz, L. Marciniak, L. A. D. Carlos, D. Jaque, Standardizing optical nanothermometry for biomedical applications, Nanoscale 12 (2020) 14405-14421.
18. E. Ortiz-Rivero, K. Prorok, M. Skowicki, D. Lu, A. Bednarkiewicz, D. Jaque, P. Haro-González, Single-Cell Biodetection by Upconverting Microspinners, Small 15 (2019) 1904154.
19. K. Prorok, M. Skowicki, A. Kowalczyk, T. Lipiński, A. Bednarkiewicz, Near-Infrared Excited Luminescence Imaging of HeLa Cells by Using Mn²⁺ Enhanced Tb³⁺, Yb³⁺ Cooperative Upconversion in NaYF₄ Nanocrystals, Nanoscale Adv., 1 (2019) 3463-3473.
20. A. Bednarkiewicz, E. Chan, A. Kotulska, L. Marciniak, K. Prorok, Photon avalanche in lanthanide doped nanoparticles for biomedical applications: super-resolution imaging, Nanoscale Horizons 4 (2019) 4, 881-889">881-889 .
21. P. Rodríguez-Sevilla, K. Prorok, A. Bednarkiewicz, M. Marqués, A.García-Martín, J. Garcia Sole, P.Haro-González, D. Jaque, Optical forces at the nanoscale: size and electrostatic effects, Nano Lett. 18 (2018) 602–609.
22. S. Wen, J. Zhou, K. Zheng, A. Bednarkiewicz, X. Liu, D. Jin, Advances in highly doped upconversion nanoparticles, Nature Communications 9 (2018) 2415.
23. L. Marciniak, A. Bednarkiewicz, K. Elzbieciak, NIR–NIR photon avalanche based luminescent thermometry with Nd³⁺ doped nanoparticles, J Mater Chem C, 6 (2018) 7568-7575.
24. A. Pilch, C. Würth, M. Kaiser, D. Wawrzyńczyk, M. Kurnatowska, S. Arabasz, K. Prorok, M. Samoć, W. Strek, U. Resch-Genger, A. Bednarkiewicz, Shaping luminescent properties of Yb³⁺ and Ho³⁺ Co-doped Up-converting Core-shell β-NaYF₄ nanoparticles by dopant distribution and spacing, Small 10 (2017) 1701635
25. S. Drobczyński, K. Prorok, K. Tamarov, K. Duś-Szachniewicz, V.-P. Lehto, A. Bednarkiewicz, Towards controlled photothermal treatment of single cell: Optically induced heating and remote temperature monitoring in-vitro through double wavelength optical tweezers, ACS Photonics,4 (2017) 1993–2002.
26. L. Marciniak, A. Pilch, S. Arabasz,  D. Jin, A. Bednarkiewicz, Heterogeneously Nd³⁺ Doped Single Nanoparticles for NIR-induced Heat Conversion, Luminescence, and Thermometry, Nanoscale, 9 (2017) 8288-8297.
27. A. Bednarkiewicz, K. Trejgis, J. Drabik, A. Kowalczyk, L. Marciniak, Phosphor assisted temperature sensing and imaging using resonant and non-resonant photoexcitation scheme, ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces 9 (2017) 43081–43089.
28. J. Conde, T.-M. Liu, T. Lipiński, A. Bednarkiewicz, Ch.-Ch. Huang, Revisiting the classification of NIR absorbing/emitting Nanomaterials for in vivo bio-applications, NPG Asia Materials 8 (2016) e295
29. K. Prorok, M. Pawlyta, W. Stręk, A. Bednarkiewicz, Energy migration up-conversion of Tb³⁺ in Yb³⁺ and Nd³⁺ codoped active-core/active-shell NaYF₄ colloidal nanoparticles, Chem. Mater. 28 (2016) 2295−2300.
30. A. Gnach, T. Lipinski, A. Bednarkiewicz, J. Rybka, J.A. Capobianco, Upconverting nanoparticles: assessing the toxicity, Chem Soc Rev 44 (2015) 1561-84.

MAJOR CONFERENCES

• 2024     PHOTON AVALANCHING – MECHANISM, APPLICATIONS AND FUTURE CHALLENGES REMAT’24, Vilnus, Lithuenia (keynote)

• 2024     PHOTON AVALANCHING INORGANIC LUMINESCENSCENT LABELS FOR APPLICATIONS IN (BIO)TECHNOLOGY PHOTON AVALANCHE QUENCHING UPCON’24, Montreal, Canada (Inv)

• 2024     PHOTON AVALANCHING INORGANIC LUMINESCENSCENT LABELS FOR (BIO)SENSING AND (SUPER)RESOLUTION IMAGING MAF’24, Valencia, Spain (inv)

• 2023     NOVEL FEATURES AND APPLICATIONS OF THE PHOTON AVALANCHE PHENOMENON, ESTE 2023 Conference, Świeradów-Zdrój, Poland (lecture)
• 2023     NOVEL FEATURES AND APPLICATIONS OF THE PHOTON AVALANCHE PHENOMENON, keynote lecture, Upconverting Nanoparticles Gordon Research Conference, Waterville Valley, USA
• 2021     Photon avalanching at nanoscale: challenges and new possibilities, International Conference on Luminescence (ICL2020, 07.2021) Wrocław, Poland, (invited lecture)
• 2021     Photon Avalanche Upconverting Nanoparticles for biomedical applications, Artur Bednarkiewicz, UPCON2021 (2021) remote (lecture)
• 2019     NIR–NIR photon avalanche based luminescent thermometry with Nd³⁺ doped nanoparticles, Artur Bednarkiewicz*, Łukasz Marciniak, Karolina Elżbieciak, IS-OM8 (2019), Wrocław, Poland, (lecture)
• 2018     Photon avalanche in lanthanide doped nanoparticles, A.Bednarkiewicz, 11th International Conference on Nanophotonics, (www.icnp2018.org), Wroclaw, Poland (invited) (2.07.2018)
• 2018     Super-resolution imaging with Ln³⁺ doped nanocrystals, A.Bednarkiewicz, 2nd  Conference and Spring School on Properties, Design and Applications of UpconversionNanomaterials UPCON’18, Valencia, Spain (invited)
• 2017     Spectral shaping in active-core-active-shell up-converting nanoparticles the role of active-core @ active-shell chemical architecture, A.Bednarkiewicz, SHIFT 2017, Tenerife Island, Spain (keynote)
• 2017     Shaping luminescent properties of up-converting -NaYF4 colloidal nanoparticles  the role of Active-Core @ Active-Shell chemical architecture, A.Bednarkiewicz, International Conference on Luminescence ICL 2018, Brasil (keynote)
• 2017     Quantitation of luminescent properties of Yb and Ho co-doped NaYF4 colloidal nanoparticles - novel active-core-active-shell materials and novel characterization methods”, A.Bednarkiewicz, CM1403 COST annual meeting, Aveiro, Portugal (lecture)
• 2017     Up-conversion technology are all questions answered ?, A.Bednarkiewicz MRS 2017, Phoenix, USA (invited)
• 2016     with a lecture Upconverting nanoparticles for cancer theranostics, A.Bednarkiewicz, 2nd International Conference “Current Trends in Cancer Theranostics”June 19-23, 2016, Druskininkai, Lithuania (lecture +co-chairing)
• 2015     The nano-engineering of efficient up-converting nanoparticles through active-core-active-shell approach, A.Bednarkiewicz, International conference CTCT2015: Current Trends in Cancer Theranostics. June 1-3, 2015, in Jena, Germany (invited)
• 2015     Luminescent nanoparticles for life sciences, A.Bednarkiewicz,  Young Academy of Europe and Academia Europea  Annual Meeting 2015, Darmstadt (invited)
• 2014     Lanthanide doped active-core @ active-shell nanoparticles: properties, applications and challenges, A.Bednarkiewicz, International Conference on Fluorescent Up-converting Nanoparticles: a Platform for Energy and Biomedical Applications, held from 4th to 6th June 2014, Torremolinos, Spain (lecture)

SCIENTIFIC INTERESTS:

• Spectroscopy, modelling and applications on nanocolloidal luminophores doped with lanthanide ions for bio-medical, bio-sensing and bio-imaging applications
• Cooperative energy transfer in (nano)cristals doped with lanthanides, photon avalanche, new materials doped with lanthanides for laser materials, microlasers, laser diode pumped solid state lasers
• Lasers and spectroscopy in medicine (hypespectral imaging, fluorescence lifetime imaging, photodynamic therapy, light dosimetry etc.)

• Music - a singer in Technical University Choir (1996 – 2000) and Medical University Choir (2000 – 2002), Wroclaw
• Art photography, mountain trekking, sport (volleyball, tennis, biking), tourism, history of science

For full CV please clik here.