I completed my doctorate in 2003 at the University of Indiana (USA). Then, I carried out 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-CSIC). Since 2014, I am the group leader of "Functional Nanomaterials & Surfaces" (FunNanoSurf, http://departments.icmab.es/funnanosurf/), included in the Research Unit of "Functional Surfaces and interfaces" at the same institute.

My research focuses on molecular-based materials, their nanostructuration and application taking advantage of their magnetic, electronic and/or fluorescent properties in the bulk, on surfaces and as active 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). Main targets are the design of specific molecules together with their control and organization on surfaces/nanodevices where their properties can be used. In my group, we synthesize different molecular-based systems (from 0D-3D, of curcuminoid nature and coordination compounds), characterize and study them on surfaces (eg.: graphene, gold, SWCNTs) and analyze their electronic behavior on nanodevices (eg.: nanoFETs). So far, our work has shown the advantages of our systems as (i) biomarkers and/or sensors, (ii) active components in nano-transistors and as (iii) Single-Molecule Magnets .