Núria Aliaga-Alcalde

Institut de Ciència de Materials de Barcelona (CSIC - ICMAB)

Experimental Sciences & Mathematics

I completed my doctorate in 2003 at the University of Indiana (USA). Afterward, I carried out two post-doctorates: at the Max Planck Institut für Bioanorganische Chemie (MPI, Germany, 2003-2005) and at the Leiden University (The Netherlands, 2005-2007). In 2007 I started as ICREA Researcher in the Department of Inorganic Chemistry at the University of Barcelona (UB) and in September 2012 became ICREA Researcher Professor and moved to the Institut de Ciències dels Materials de Barcelona (ICMAB) where I am the group leader of "Functional Nanomaterials & Surfaces" since 2014 (FunNanoSurf, http://departments.icmab.es/funnanosurf/). My research focuses on multifunctional molecules and polymers, their nanostructuration and application of their magnetic, electronic and/or fluorescent properties in the bulk, on surfaces and as a components in nanodevices.


Research interests

My work focuses on the relevance and necessity of molecular design in Nanoscience, where functional molecules play a key role since they provide homogeneous tunable nanometer-size units and properties ready to be exploited (as reliable sensors, switches, quantum computing materials or molecular electronics). Our key factors are the design of specific molecules and their control and organization on surfaces/nanodevices where their properties can be tuned. In my group, we synthesize different molecular systems (of porphyrinic, curcuminoid or polymeric natures with or without coordination to metal ions), characterize and study them on surfaces (eg.: graphene, gold, SWCNTs) and together with collaborators on nanodevices (transistors) we analyze their electronic behavior. So far, our work in progress has shown the advantages of our systems as (i) biomarkers (luminescent properties), (ii) transistors (gateable molecular junctions) and (iii) as Single-Molecule Magnets (SMMs).

Selected publications

– Albalad J, Arinez-Soriano J, Vidal-Gancedo J, Lloveras V, Juanhuix J, Imaz I, Aliaga-Alcalde N & Maspoch D 2016, ‘Hetero-bimetallic paddlewheel clusters in coordination polymers formed by a water-induced single-crystal-to-single-crystal transformation’, Chemical Communications, 52, 91, 13397 – 13400.

– Fontanet M, Rodriguez M, Fontrodona X, Romero I, Teixidor F, Vinas C & Aliaga-Alcalde N 2016, ‘Carving a 1D Co-II-carboranylcarboxylate system by using organic solvents to create stable trinuclear molecular analogues: complete structural and magnetic studies’, Dalton Transactions, 45, 27, 10916 – 10927.

– Etcheverry-Berrios A, Olavarria I, Perrin ML, Diaz-Torres R, Jullian D, Ponce I, Zagal JH, Pavez J, Vasquez SO, van der Zant HSJ, Dulic D, Aliaga-Alcalde N & Soler M 2016, ‘Multiscale Approach to the Study of the Electronic Properties of Two Thiophene Curcuminoid Molecules’, Chemistry-a European Journal, 22, 36, 12808 – 12818.

– Burzurí E, Island JO, Díaz-Torres R, Fursina A, González-Campo A, Roubeau O, Teat SJ, Aliaga-Alcalde N, Ruiz E & van der Zant HSJ 2016, ‘Excitations in an Organic Molecule Coupled to Few-Layer Graphene Electrodes’, ACS Nano, vol. 10(2), pp 2521-2527.

– Díaz-Torres R, Menelaou M, Roubeau O, Sorrenti A, Brandariz-de Pedro G, Sañudo EC, Teat SJ, Fraxedas J, Ruiz E & Aliaga-Alcalde N 2016, ‘Multiscale Study of Mononuclear CoII SMMs based on Curcuminoid Ligands’, Chemical Science, vol. 7, pp 2793 – 2803.


Selected research activities

– Special Issue Guest Editor in de journal “Magnetochemistry”

– Evaluator: Ph.D. committee, ANEP and FONDECYT-Chile projects

– Invitated talks at ICCC2016 (Brest, France), EMN (San Sebastian, Spain) and DAFNEOX (Bellaterra, Spain)