I graduated in physics in 1985 at the Balseiro Institute, Argentina. In 1989 I finished my PhD at the Max-Planck Institute FKF in Stuttgart with Prof. M. Cardona. It followed a two-years postdoc at AT&T Bell Labs in Murray Hill, USA, and back at MPI-FKF Stuttgart for three years. In 1996 I moved to the Technical University of Berlin for an appointment as Research & Teaching Associate, where in 1998 I completed my Habilitation. In 1999 I received the Karl-Scheel Prize from the Physical Society of Berlin for my contributions to the field of high-pressure semiconductor physics. I joined the Optoelectronic Properties of Nanostructured Materials (NANOPTO) group at ICMAB-CSIC in November 2003 as ICREA. At ICMAB I created a facility for optical spectroscopy with micro and nanometer-scale resolution and set up a laboratory for high-pressure physics.

I am an experimental physicist with broad interests and experience in solid-state physics, optical spectroscopy (Raman scattering, photoluminescence, etc.), nanoscience and technology, energy materials, physics of low-dimensional materials (superlattices, quantum wires and dots), highly correlated electron systems, and high-pressure techniques. Essentially, I use light as a probe of the physical properties of all kinds of molecular materials and organic and/or inorganic nanomaterials, looking for new behaviors or phenomena that arise as a direct consequence of the reduced dimensionality and/or size of the material system under study. Although I dedicate myself to basic research, I always have a clear application in mind, such as improving the performance of optoelectronic devices, enhancing thermoelectric and/or photovoltaic properties, boosting solar energy conversion efficiency, develop ultra-sensitive spectroscopic techniques, etc. I currently lead group activities on high pressure physics, hybrid metal-halide perovskites, plasmon-assisted hot-electron emitters and the development of a spectrum-on-demand light source.