Prof. David Écija is an expert in condensed matter physics, surface and molecular nanoscience. He received a PhD degree in Physics from UAM, with a work on self-assembly of nanostructures on surfaces. He was awarded a Marie Curie Intra European Fellowship and moved to Prof. Barth ́s group at the Technical University of Munich, where he carried out a four-year stay working on functional molecular nanoarchitectures on surfaces. In January 2014 he joined IMDEA Nanociencia as Researcher and “Ramon y Cajal” fellow to develop nanomaterials on surfaces. Notably, he is the recipient of the ERC 2018 Consolidator Grant (ELECNANO). Since May 2019, he is Research Professor at IMDEA Nanociencia (tenured).

Our group is focused on the visualization and understanding of physico-chemical processes on surfaces, including three main lines of research: 

• Design of surface-confined metal-organic materials. Our main interest is to rationalize the coordination chemistry of functional metals on surfaces, creating unique architectures with advanced functionalities for sensing, catalysis, light emission, nanomagnetism and quantum information.  

• On-surface synthesis of functional nanomaterials. We focus on the exploration of unprecedented chemical reactions aiming at the design of novel 1D or 2D soft materials, envisioning impact in optoelectronics, carbon magnetism and quantum information.

• Nanocatalysts for energy applications. We pursue the on-surface design and atomistic characterization of metal-oxide, metal-organic or purely organic nanocatalysts of relevance for energy related applications, like water splitting or CO₂ reduction.

Ignacio Urgel holds a MSc in chemistry from Universidad de Alcalá de Henares (UAH) and a MSc in material engineering from Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM). In 2016, he completed his PhD at the Technical University of Munich (TUM, Germany). Afterwards, he joined to the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Material Science and Technology (EMPA, Switzerland) as a postdoctoral researcher for 3.5 years, where he became an expert in on-surface chemistry. In October 2019, he joined the Nanoarchitectonics on Surfaces group at IMDEA Nanociencia (Spain) as a researcher after obtaining several scholarships: Marie Curie Individual Fellowship (MSCA-IF), Comunidad de Madrid (CAM) Fellowship for young talents (declined after the first year in favor of the MSCA-IF) and the Juan de la Cierva incorporación Fellowship (JdCI) granted by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (declined in favor of the CAM). His technical skills are related to several ultra-high vacuum (UHV) surface science techniques such as low-temperature scanning probe microscopy/spectroscopy (STM/STS, nc-AFM) and photoelectron spectroscopy (including experience in synchrotron facilities).

Ignacio Urgel's main research interest at IMDEA Nanociencia is dedicated to the on-surface synthesis of atomically precise synthetic carbon-based nanostructures (SCNs). More specifically, he investigates novel nanographenes (NGs) and covalently linked organic polymers (CPs), with prospects in organic electronics. The fabrication and characterization of such SCNs on surfaces, often hampered under conventional solution chemistry due to their low solubility and high reactivity, provide a novel route to study their unique structural, electronic and magnetic properties, enabling completely new functionalities. The final goal of his research topic is the fabrication of prototype field effect transistors based on CPs, which will suppose a great achievement by introducing NG/CP-FETs to the next-generation of flexible organic electronics. Along the way, he will profoundly study the chemical stability and the transfer of such SCNs from the necessary metallic substrate to a technologically relevant one.