Sergio O. Valenzuela

Institut Català de Nanociència i Nanotecnologia

Engineering Sciences

Sergio O. Valenzuela is an ICREA Prof. at the Catalan Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (ICN2), The Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology. He leads the Physics and Engineering of Nanodevices group, which focuses on quantum transport, spintronics, and thermoelectricity in materials such as graphene and topological insulators. He has pioneered the use of nonlocal devices to study the spin Hall effect, thermopiles to isolate the magnon drag in ferromagnetic materials, and implemented novel qubit control and spectroscopy methods. Prof. Valenzuela received a PhD in Physics at the University of Buenos Aires, and held research positions at Harvard University and MIT. He is recipient of the Giambiagi prize, the IUPAP Young Scientist Prize and a ERC Consolidator Grant. He is also Principal Investigator of the Graphene Flagship and Grantor of the ICN2 “Severo Ochoa” Centre of Excellence Project.


Research interests

In recent years, electronic devices have been scaled down to nanoscale sizes where quantum effects begin to interfere with their functioning. Materials and devices in such scales often present unexpected and unintuitive physical properties. Prof. Valenzuela's Group focus is the development of novel devices, which are designed to gain insight of specific physical properties of the system components, relevant both for fundamental reasons and applications at the nanoscale. The current research interests of the group span Spintronics, Spin Caloritronics, and quantum transport in particular in graphene and topological insulators. For more information see: http://nanodevices.icn2.cat.

Selected publications

- Sander D, Valenzuela SO et al. 2017, 'The 2017 Magnetism Roadmap', Journal Of Physics D-Applied Physics, 50, 36, 363001.

- Bonell F, Cuxart MG, Song K, Robles R, Ordejon P, Roche SMugarza AValenzuela SO 2017, 'Growth of Twin-Free and Low-Doped Topological Insulators on BaF2(111)', Crystal Growth & Design, 17, 9, 4655 - 4660.

- Savero Torres W, Sierra J F, Benitez LA, Bonell F, Costache MV & Valenzuela SO 2017, 'Spin precession and spin Hall effect in monolayer graphene/Pt nanostructures', 2d Materials, 4, 4, 041008.

- Raes B, Cummings AW, Bonell F, Costache MV, Sierra JF, Roche S & Valenzuela SO 2017, 'Spin precession in anisotropic media', ​Phys. Rev. B 95, 085403.

- Maekawa S, Valenzuela SO, Saitoh E & Kimura T, Eds, Spin Current. 2nd Edn, Oxford University Press.


Selected research activities

Selected Invited/Plenary Talks

  • Zernike Institute, Groningen University, Groningen, The Netherlands, November, 2017.
  • 5th Joint CNRS-CSIC Workshop. Trends on Spintronics and Nanomagnetism, Madrid, October 5-6, 2017.
  • Solvay Workshop "From physics of graphene to graphene for physics”, Brussels, September 6 - 8, 2017.
  • Spins, Valleys, and Topological States in 2D and Layered Materials, The Ohio State University, Ohio, USA. June 5-8, 2017
  • 2nd EU-Japan Workshop on Graphene and Related 2D Materials, Barcelona, May 6-8, 2017.
  • Nanoscale Science Department, Max-Planck Institute of Solid State Research, Stuttgart, Germany, January, 2017.

Other Activities

  • Lecturer, ESONN'17 European School on Nanoscience & Nanotechnologies (Spintronics), Grenoble, France.
  • Scientific Advisory Committee Member of the European School on Magnetism (ESM).
  • Co-Editor Focus Issue on Tailoring Spin-Dependent Transport in 2D Materials (2D Materials Journal; http://2dmaterials.org).
  • Scientific Committee Member of New Trends of Topological Insulator Workshop (NTTI) and Frontiers in Magnetism (2017).
  • Principal Investigator of ERC Consolidator Grant SPINBOUND and within the Graphene Flagship.