Javier García de Abajo obtained his PhD in condensed matter theory from the University of the Basque Country (Spain) in 1993. After spending three years in Berkeley National Lab., he became a staff scientist at CSIC (Spain) and was promoted to Research Professor in 2008. He is currently an ICREA Research Professor and leader of the Nanophotonics Theory Group at ICFO. His interests include electron microscopy, light-matter interactions, ultrafast phenomena, and nanophotonics. He has co-authored 450+ papers that have accumulated 70,000+ citations and an h index of 128 (Google Scholar, Feb. 2026). He is a Fellow of both the American Physical Society and the Optical Society of America.

García de Abajo is an expert in the science of light and its interaction with free electrons, atoms, molecules, and material nanostructures. He has predicted and explained new phenomena that include collective electron excitations –plasmons– in atomic-scale systems; ultrafast electron-beam interactions with localized optical fields; strong molecule–plasmon coupling; ultrafast radiative heat transfer; quantum friction; and others. Many of his predictions have been corroborated experimentally. He maintains an intense research agenda covering a wide range of topics in collaboration with a network of groups in the fields of electron microscope spectroscopies, ultrafast phenomena, and nanophotonics.