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 a staff scientist at CSIC (Spain) and was promoted to Research Professor in 2008. He is currently an ICREA Research Professor and leader of the Nanophotonics Theory Group at ICFO. His interests include electron microscopy, light-matter interactions, ultrafast phenomena, and nanophotonics. He has co-authored 400+ papers that have accumulated 65,000+ citations and an h index of 122 (Google Scholar, Feb. 2025). He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and the Optical Society of America.
Research interests
García de Abajo is an expert in the science of light, free electrons, and their interaction with atoms, molecules, and material nanostructures. He has predicted and explained new phenomena that include collective electron excitations –plasmons– in atomic-scale systems (e.g., molecules and nanographenes); ultrafast electron-beam interactions with localized optical fields; strong molecule–plasmon coupling; ultrafast radiative heat transfer; quantum friction; and others. Many of his predictions have been corroborated experimentally. He maintains an intense research agenda covering a wide range of topics in collaboration with a network of groups in the fields of electron microscope spectroscopies, ultrafast phenomena, and nanophotonics.
Selected publications
- V. Mkhitaryan, A. P. Weber, S. Abdullah, L. Fernández, Z. M. Abd El-Fattah, I. Piquero-Zulaica, H. Agarwal, K. G. Díez, F. Schiller, J. E. Ortega, and F. J. García de Abajo, "Ultraconfined plasmons in atomically thin crystalline silver nanostructures", Advanced Materials 36, 2302520 (2024).
- C. I. Velasco, V. Di Giulio, and F. J. García de Abajo, "Radiative loss of coherence in free electrons: a long-range quantum phenomenon", Light: Science & Applications 13, 31 (2024)
- A. P. Synanidis, P. A. D. Gonçalves, C. Ropers, and F. J. García de Abajo, "Quantum effects in the interaction of low-energy electrons with light", Science Advances 10, eadp4096 (2024).
- T. P. Rasmussen, A. Rodríguez Echarri, J. D. Cox, and F. J. García de Abajo, "Generation of entangled waveguided photon pairs by free electrons", Science Advances 10, eadn6312 (2024).
- Abdullah S, Dias EJC, Krpenský J, Mkhitaryan V & García de Abajo FJ 2024, 'Toward complete optical coupling to confined surface polariton', ACS Photonics 11 - 6 - 2183-2193.
- Y. Wu, A. Konecná, S. H. Cho, D. J. Milliron, J. A. Hachtel, and F. J. García de Abajo, "Singular and nonsingular transitions in the infrared plasmons of nearly touching nanocube dimers", ACS Nano 18, 15130-15138 (2024)
- V. Di Giulio, E. Akerboom, A. Polman, and F. J. García de Abajo, "Toward Optimum Coupling between Free Electrons and Confined Optical Modes", ACS Nano 18, 14255-14275 (2024).
- Zhou J, Gonçalves PAD, Riminucci F, Dhuey S, Barnard ES, Schwartzberg AM, García de Abajo FJ & Weber-Bargioni A 2024, 'Probing plexciton emission from 2D materials on gold nanotrenches', Nature Communications, 15 - 1- 9583.
- Gaida JH, Lourenço-Martins H, Sivis M, Rittmann T, Feist A, García de Abajo FJ & Ropers C 2024, 'Attosecond electron microscopy by free-electron homodyne detection', Nature Photonics, 18 -509-515.