Fontcuberta I Griñó Josep

Biography

I got my degree (1977) and the PhD on Physics (1982) at the Universitat de Barcelona (UB) After stages at the Laboratory of Crystallography (CNRS) in Grenoble and at the Inorganic Chemistry Lab. of Oxford University, working in the J. C. Joubert and J. B. Goodenough's groups, respectively, I returned back to UB, teaching Crystallography and Crystallochemistry, Nuclear Physics and Solid State Physics and becoming Professor on Condensed Matter Physics. On 1990 I moved to the ICMAB to contribute building a new Laboratory and research group on Magnetism and Superconductivity. Since 2000 I’m full Research Professor coordinating the research activity with the Laboratory of Multifunctional Oxides and Complex Structures.  

Research Interest

I’m mostly interested on functional oxides. These strongly correlated electronic systems display fascinating ferroic (i.e. magnetic, ferroelectric), electric, optic, properties etc, that have motivated my research and that of the group I’m leading. I’m a material’s scientist and I have devoted much effort to the preparation and epitaxial growth of complex oxides and to the study of the relationship between their structure, microstructure and functional properties. Nowadays, my research activity is focused on exploiting oxide thin films for efficient manipulation of data storage using magnetic and ferroelectric materials, and their potential use in photovoltaics for energy harvesting.   I’m persuaded that oxides can play a very important role in advanced high-tech devices and I’m pushing for the development of either new applications or new-concept devices.