Catalan Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology

At ICN2, I have analyzed and studied how mechanical vibrations of matter in the few GHz-frequency range affect and are affected by complexity – structural imperfection – in different nanodevices. This rather fundamental research topic has important applications in many relevant fields such as energy harvesting, imaging, lasing, quantum optics or information processing. Understanding the role of fabrication disorder in nanostructures is the key to explore ways in order to minimize its effect. In this direction, I explored different topological phases by engineering the unit cell of periodic structures. Band inversion induced by purely engineering the topography of the dielectric structure is the key concept to explore. One of current goals is to explore analogues of topological insulators for bosonic systems. I was co-director of the thesis of two PhD students, Mr. Guillermo Arregui and Mr. Omar Florez, whose research I supervised on a daily basis. In addition, I coordinated and supervised the work of two theoretical postdocs, Dr. Jordi Gomis-Bresco and Dr. Philippe Djorwe. As a result of my research in this period, I have published ten papers (four as last author) in journals like Nature Communications of Physical Review Letter and I coordinate an EU-funded project as the group principal investigator.