On 26 November 2025, the Institute of Solid State Physics at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences welcomed a group of high school students and their teachers from specialized schools in Kladno (Czech Republic), Nogent-sur-Oise (France), and the Professional High School of Ecology and Biotechnology "Prof. Dr. Assen Zlatarov" (Bulgaria). The three educational institutions are partners in the project "Alternative Energy Sources – Feasibility Studies" under the Erasmus+ mobility programme, with the Bulgarian group led by the teacher Mrs. Vyara Yordanova.
The purpose of the visit to the Institute of Solid State Physics was the students’ interest in the work of the “Acoustoelectronics” laboratory in the thematic area of piezoelectric materials. The head of the laboratory and Scientific Secretary of the Institute, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Karekin Esmerian, delivered a lecture on the piezoelectric effect and its practical applications – from surface acoustic wave filters and delay lines to piezoresonance sensors for biological and chemical analysis. He introduced the audience to the operating principles of a quartz resonator (quartz microbalance) in different environments – air, solid-state coatings, gases, and liquids – both on wettable and non-wettable sensor surfaces.
After the lecture, the visitors toured the “Acousto-electronics” laboratory, where Assoc. Prof. Esmerian demonstrated a new generation of alcohol breath analyzers developed on the basis of quartz microbalance technology, and presented the research directions and scientific equipment used in the laboratory.
