Epitaxial Growth

Miguel Angel Niño obtained his MSc (1997) in Solid State Physics from the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (UAM). He joined in 2000 the group of Prof. R. Miranda at the Surface Science Laboratory of UAM where he obtained his PhD in 2006. He then moved to the group of Prof. Maya Kiskinova and A. Locatelli at the Nanospectroscopy beamline in Elettra Synchrotron in Trieste (Italy), performing synchrotron radiation based spectromicroscopy. In 2011 he joined IMDEA Nanoscience as researcher, in the frame of Marie Curie pro- gram, to set the Molecular Beam Epitaxy Growth Laboratory and the surface spectroscopy analysis system.

The MBE group has different interests in the Surface Science: spectroscopy, chemical reactivity, growth of thin films and nanomagnetism. The MBE laboratory has several UHV systems to perform surface studies with XPS, UPS, LEED, TDS, as well as different in-situ UHV growth techniques (MBE, magnetron sput- tering) for metals, oxides and molecular organic materials. In particular we carry out projects in: 

• Chirality and magnetism: We study the interplay between the chirality and spin filtering effects of thin molecular films.
• Surface reactivity: We are interested in the role of metallic sulphide surfaces in the synthesis of organic molecules in prebiotic chemistry. We study catalytic process on ferroelectric surfaces and molecular adsorption.
• Functionalization and characterization of 2D materials: In collaboration with the 2D Materials Group of Imdea, we carry the characterization with local and non-local photoemission spectroscopy of the electronic structure of 2D systems, and its functionalization with organic molecules deposited by MBE.
• Growth of molecular films: We study the improvement of surfaces and interfaces onthinfilmsoforganic materials for solar cell. The development of new metal-organic magnetic materials and the influence of anisotropy in its magnetic properties.

•  "Enantiospecific spin polarization of electrons photoemitted through layers of homochiral organic molecules" M.A. Niño et al.. Adv. Matter. 2014, 26, 7474– 7479
•  "Spatially resolved, site-dependent charge transfer and induced magnetic moment in TCNQ adsorbed on graphene" D. MAccariello et al..Chem. Mater., 2014, 26, pp 2883–2890
• "Desorption kinetics from a surface derived from direct imaging of the adsorbate layer" S. Gunther et al. Nature Commun. 5, 1709-1714 (2013)