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Work and play

Foto Juan 2010

 

At work

Formally I started doing research after my undergrad Physics studies. That means we are not counting trying (and failing) to build a CO2 laser as a proxy for the 3-year lab work during the Physics undergrad studies or other previous attempts at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. My PhD, also in Physics and still at the same place, was done under the direction of Prof. Carmen Ocal at the Surface Physics Laboratory (the group leader was and is Prof. Rodolfo Miranda). There,  I had a lot of fun using and fighting with scanning tunneling microscopes. After my PhD thesis (which you can find here), I moved for a first postdoctoral stay with Prof. J. M. Rojo at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. There I taught some freshman physics while I tried to learn something about dislocations and to do some physics with my spare time. After that and a short stay in Mexico DF at the UNAM, I moved to California. From 1997 to 2002 I stayed there, at the Sandia National Laboratories/CA. It started as a postdoctoral stay, and ended with me working as a research scientist for the last years. In 2002, I took one of the contracts offered by the Spanish government as a kind of tenure track (a "contrato Ramon y Cajal" -check at the Ramon y Cajal site-), something that with some imagination could be called an Assistant Professor position, "returning" at the Universidad Autónoma of Madrid. During that time, and also receiving tenure there in 2006 (having a "profesor contratado doctor" position),  I devoted my time to put together a lab (LOMA) at the Center for Microanalysis of Materials (CMAM), and to learn low energy electron microscopy during summers, at Berkeley and Sandia National Labs. In 2007 I moved to the the Instituto de Quimica-Fisica "Rocasolano", part of the CSIC at the Surface Analysis Mossbauer group.

My Hirsch index in 2012 is 22. You can find a bit more work-related stuff:

  • My publications list.

  • You can find some tips and tricks that I found useful (about computers and other stuff).
  • I have also been involved in the spanish equivalent of the AAAS, the AACTE (Association for the advancement of science and technology in Spain). To be frank, the spanish science system is open to improvement.
  • My ORCID is 0000-0002-7014-4777, my researchID is E-7046-2010, and my Scopus ID is 6701455015. If you want to check my publication list on the ISI Web of Science, just use as search parameters: AU=(de la figuera J OR delafiguera J)
  • You can find me at Google+, Linkedin, or at Researchgate.

 

Summary of scientific results and interests

 

  • Academic
  • H-index of 22
     
  • 3 Invited Book Chapters
     
  •  Over 60 Publications in Internationally Referred Journals (more than 1200 citations according to the Science Citation Index- 2011).
     
  • Over 50 Invited Lectures
     
  • Over 80 Contributed Presentations at International Conferences and Symposia
     
  • 4 research grants as Principal Investigator
     
  • Awards:
    • Fulbright Fellow (FUL97 2608966) (1997 - 1999)
    • Award to the best PhD Thesis, Universidad Autonoma de Madrid (1995).
    • Research Fellowship from the Spanish Ministry of Education (1988-1992)
    • Fellowship from the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) (1987 - 1988)
       
  • Employment
    • (2007-now) Tenured researcher, Instituto de Quimica-Fisica "Rocasolano"
    • (2006-2007) Associate Professor, Universidad Autonoma de Madrid
    • (2002-2005) Assistant Professor "Ramon y Cajal", Universidad Autonoma de Madrid
    • (2001-2002) Limited Term Employee, Sandia National Laboratories
    • (1999-2000) Postdoctoral Fellow, Lawrence Berkeley National Lab
    • (1997-1999) Fulbright Fellow for Postdoctoral Studies
    • (1996-1997) Lecturer, Universidad Complutense de Madrid
    • (1995-1996) Lecturer, Universidad Autonoma de Madrid

    •  

    Selected publication list

     
    1. K. Pohl, M.C. Bartelt, J. de la Figuera, N.C. Bartelt, J. Hrbek and R.Q. Hwang. "Identifying the forces responsible for self-assembled nanostructures" Nature 397 (1999), 238.
    2. J. de la Figuera, K. Pohl, O.R. de la Fuente, A.K. Schmid, N.C. Bartelt, C.B. Carter and R.Q. Hwang. "Direct Observation of Misfit Dislocation Glide" Phys. Rev. Lett. 86, 3819 (2001).
    3. F. El Gabaly, W. L. Ling, K. F. McCarty, J. de la Figuera "The importance of threading dislocations on the motion of grain boundaries in thin films" Science 308, 1303 (2005).
    4. F. El Gabaly, S. Gallego, M. Carmen Munoz, L. Szunyogh, P. Weinberger, K. F. McCarty, C. Klein, A. K. Schmid, J. de la Figuera "Imaging Spin Reorientation Transitions in Consecutive Atomic Co layers" Phys. Rev. Lett. 96 147202 (2006), (cond-mat/0512220).
    5. M. Monti, B. Santos, A. Mascaraque, O. Rodriguez la Fuente, M. A. Niño, T. O. Mentes, A. Locatelli, K. F. Mc Carty, J. F. Marco, and J. de la Figuera. “Magnetism in nanometer-thick magnetite”. Phys. Rev. B 85 (2012) 020404(R) DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevB.00.000400 (arxiv 1110.4568). 

    Research Interests

    The main theme of my work has been to understand the behavior and consequences of defects on the surface of a material through the use of imaging (i.e. real space) techniques.
     

    To characterize properly the surfaces one possibility is to resort to Ultra-High-Vacuum experiments. In UHV while I am familiar and have use often the regular surface science techniques (Auger Electron Spectrocoscopy, Low Energy Electron Diffraction, Surface X-ray Diffraction, etc), I have been specially involved with Scanning Probe Microscopies (SPM) and Low Energy Electron Microscopies (LEEM). To such end, I have programmed data-adquisition systems, tested newly built STMs and designed and build them. In the last years, I have been focussing in Low Energy Electron Microscopy, a technique that employs a low energy electron beam to form a magnified image of the surface at high speed. LEEM is a particular example of the abilities of electron microscopies applied to surfaces, and it is specially useful in dynamic studies when coupled to either spin-polarized electron beams (for probing sample magnetization) or diffraction contrast (for following phase transformations) to gather information on the nanoscale.

    Mail signatures

     

    Because you should not trust unsigned email, you can find my public keys for:

    Life, the Universe, and Everything

    Well, this will always be outdated, specially since the arrival of facebook and google+. I have to find time to put more stuff here, but Ines (my daughter) and Ana (my wife) usually have other (better) ideas to spend my time (ok, she also has some ideas to spend her time, as the EU info portal www.hypatia.eu). It didn't get any better with the arrival of my son. Ok, that was some time ago, but seems yesterday.

     

    familia en niagara

    But just to give a flavour, I like:

    • To visit friends. Some of them are in the USA, so it is not so straightforward. You can seen and old photo of all the family at our annual visit to California...todosjuntos

    • To fool around with Gnu/Linux (towards world domination!) and computers

    • I used to like FPS like Quake II and III (of course under Linux), to have friendly discussions with my friends, but my fingers hurt too much. So when I have some time (which is rare) you can even find me in Second Life. Well, is that playing? Maybe I will put together some day a virtual lab to to do virtual science. I have also played, specially with my daughter, with the ps3. Lets face it, a console is cheaper than a PC for running games. Sad they are useless for anything else... (have you tried to use the browser from the ps3? it is horrible).

    • I also like basketball (the one you play yourself, not the one you watch from the sofa), but given the sorry state of my legs, I prefer to run. And talk, I guess I am a social runner.

    • Given that our younger child is autistic, we also devote some time to autism. Let us say it is an interesting life. He really likes to walk around, giving me the chance to walk with him at the mountains around our home. But what he really really likes is the beach and/or swimming pools. Sad we leave far from the sea. Well, and he liked cats, much to our surprise...2011 Daniel en la playa       2011 Daniel con el gato en casa de Andreas
     

    • Star Trek, specially the Next Generation series (have you heard the term trekkie?, well...trekkies). Given that the latest Star Trek sucks, we have been wandering to Babylon 5, Battlestar Galactica, Firefly and others. Even Doctor Who. And Futurama, of course.

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