The Quantum and Molecular Magnetism research group is led by Dr. Vinicius Tadeu Santana, a physicist specializing in electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) and the study of molecular magnetic materials. He earned his PhD in Physics at the São Carlos Institute of Physics (IFSC/USP) in Brazil, where, under the supervision of Prof. Otaciro R. Nascimento, he studied exchange interactions in antiferromagnetic materials. During his training, he also completed a research internship abroad at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) in Germany. Since 2018, he has been affiliated with CEITEC BUT in Brno, initially as a Junior Research Fellow in Assoc. Prof. Petr Neugebauer's Magneto-optical and THz Spectroscopy group, where he helped build a unique high-frequency EPR spectrometer, including the development of associated software.
Since January 2024, Dr. Santana has been the principal investigator of the prestigious Junior Star grant from the Czech Science Foundation (project "Control of quantum phases and entanglement by magnetic fields in molecular systems," 1 million EUR, 2024–2028), which allowed him to establish his own research group starting in April 2025. He currently leads an eight-member team consisting of three postdoctoral researchers, two PhD students, two undergraduate/master's students, and one administrative staff member. His research focuses on developing high-frequency EPR spectroscopy methodologies, studying quantum phase transitions in spin systems, and characterizing transition-metal coordination compounds. He is author or co-author of 38 peer-reviewed publications and one book chapter, with 468 citations according to Web of Science (h-index 13).
Alongside his research, Dr. Santana is actively engaged in teaching and science outreach — he teaches a graduate-level course on EPR and spectral simulation at the CEITEC PhD School and the Faculty of Science at Masaryk University, leads a journal club for the group's PhD students, and has helped organize international events such as the 8th EFEPR Summer School (2019, 140 participants) and the Advances in Magnetic Resonance workshop at CEITEC. As of 2026, he is co-chair of the upcoming EFEPR conference, to be hosted in Brno. In addition to supervising his own doctoral students, he has long been involved in mentoring high-school students and collaborates with numerous domestic and international research groups, including institutions in Brazil, the USA, and Spain.
