Stefan Bromley (1971) is an ICREA Research Professor at the Institute of Theoretical and Computational Chemistry at the University of Barcelona (IQTUB) where he heads the Nanoclusters and Nanostructured Materials group. He obtained his PhD in Computational Physics (University of Southampton, UK) in 1997 and has held research posts in the UK (Postdoctoral fellow, Royal Institution), the Netherlands (Associate Professor, Delft University of Technology) and Spain (Ramón y Cajal fellow, UB). He has published over 130 WoS-listed articles and 6 book chapters, which have received over 3500 citations (h=30), and given many invited talks about his work at international conferences and academic institutions. He has also edited a book on "Computational Modelling of Inorganic Nanomaterials" published in 2016.

Research interests

With the constant technological drive for device miniaturisation, materials are increasingly being used at scales of only a few 100s or 1000s of atoms (i.e. at the nanoscale). Such nanomaterials often display novel size-dependent properties compared to materials at everyday length scales. Using powerful supercomputers and a range of atomistic/quantum modelling methods, our aim is to obtain a detailed predictive understanding of the structural, electronic and chemical properties of nanomaterials. Of particular interest is how nanomaterials evolve with increasing size, and the design of new materials using nanoscale building blocks. Our research follows three main themes: (i) nanoclusters and nanostructured phases of materials having importance in energy applications (e.g TiO2, ZnO). (ii) growth and properties of nanoclusters of astronomical importance (e.g. TiC, silicates). (iii) design of nanostructured materials using organic molecular building blocks for electronics/spintronics.