F. Javier García de Abajo

Institut de Ciències Fotòniques (ICFO)

Engineering Sciences

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 staff scientist at CSIC (Spain) and he was promoted to Research Professor in 2008. He is currently leading the Nanophotonics Theory group at ICFO. He has worked in atomic collisions, surface science, electron microscope spectroscopies, plasmonics, and theoretical nanophotonics. He has coauthored over 300 papers that have accumulated 18,800+ citations (WoK, Jan. 2017). He is a Fellow of both the American Physical Society and the Optical Society of America.


Research interests

Javier García de Abajo’s research program on the theory nanoscale photonics ranges from optical characterization with electron-microscope spectroscopies to studies of ultrasensitive single-molecule detection, quantum aspects of light-matter interaction, excitation and characterization of plasmons by electron beams, plasmonic metamaterials, quantum friction, radiative transfer and coherent control, and graphene plasmonics. These topics cover a broad spectrum of research in nanophotonics. This theoretical effort encompasses classical and quantum methods, both analytical and numerical, which are the basis to understand and propose new phenomena with application to biosensing and quantum plasmonics.

Selected publications

– Basov DN, Fogler MM & García de Abajo FJ 2016, ‘Polaritons in van der Waals materials’, Science, vol. 354, p. aag1992.

– Cox JD, Silveiro I & García de Abajo FJ 2016, ‘Quantum effects in the nonlinear response of graphene plasmons’, ACS Nano, vol. 10, pp. 1995-2003.

– Marini A & García de Abajo FJ 2016, ‘Self-organization of frozen light in near-zero-index media with cubic nonlinearity’, Scientific Reports, vol. 6, p. 20088.

– Marini A & García de Abajo FJ 2016, ‘Graphene-based active random metamaterials for cavity-free lasing’, Physical Review Letters, vol. 116, p. 217401. (Journal cover).

– Yu R, Pruneri V & García de Abajo FJ 2016, ‘Active modulation of visible light with graphene-loaded ultrathin metal plasmonic antennas’, Scientific Reports, vol. 6, p. 32144.

– Yu R & García de Abajo FJ 2016, ‘Electrical detection of single graphene plasmons’, ACS Nano, vol. 10, pp. 8045-8053.

– Yu R, Cox JD & García de Abajo FJ 2016, ‘Nonlinear plasmonic sensing with nanographene’, Physical Review Letters, vol. 117, p. 123904.

– Saavedra JRM, Asenjo-Garcia A & García de Abajo FJ 2016, ‘Hot-electron dynamics and thermalization in small metallic nanoparticles’, ACS Photonics, vol. 3, pp. 1637-1646.

– Lummen TTA, Lamb RJ, Berruto G, LaGrange T, Dal Negro L, García de Abajo FJ, McGrouther D, Barwick B & Carbone F 2016, ‘Imaging and controlling plasmonic interference fields at buried interfaces’, Nature Communications, vol. 7, p. 13156.

– Cui Y, Lauchner A, Manjavacas A, García de Abajo FJ, Halas NJ & Nordlander P 2016, ‘Molecular plasmon-phonon coupling’, Nano Letters, vol. 16, pp. 6390-6395.

– Yu R, Mazumder P, Bonelli NF, Carrilero A, Ghosh DS, Maniyara RA, Baker D, García de Abajo FJ & Pruneri V 2016, ‘Structural coloring of glass using dewetted nanoparticles and ultrathin films of metals’, ACS Photonics, vol. 3, pp. 1194-1201. (Journal cover).