Thermal properties of nanoscale materials

Group leader: Javier Rodríguez-Viejo

Overview

Main research lines

Heat capacity of low-dimensional materials
Phase transitions with emphasis on size effects; influence of external fields on heat capacity and phase transitions
Cross-plane and in-plane thermal transport in thin films and low-dimensional materials, including membranes, 2D materials and single nanowires, characterized by DC and AC-methods
Design, development and characterization of microthermoelectric devices for energy harvesting and sensing applications
Growth and characterization of ultrastable organic thin film glasses with applications in OLEDs and solar cells

Group leader

Javier Rodríguez-Viejo

UAB Professor and Senior Group Leader

Javier Rodríguez-Viejo is Full Professor of Applied Physics at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, UAB) and leads the Group of Thermal Properties of Nanoscale Materials at the UAB and the ICN2. He performed the experimental part of his doctoral thesis at the Institut des Materiaux et Procedés CNRS, France and received his PhD in Physics from UAB in 1992. He continued his studies as a postdoctoral researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, working with Prof. Klavs F. Jensen (Chemical Eng. and Material Science Dep.) and Prof. M.G. Bawendi (Chemistry Dep.) on the synthesis of highly-luminescent CdSe(ZnS) quantum dots and the deposition of thin film quantum dot composites by electrospray organometallic chemical vapor deposition. In May 1997 he was appointed Associate Professor of Applied Physics at the Physics Department of UAB and in 2011 became Full Professor at the same University. He has been visiting scientist at Air Products in Allentown, US (July-August 2008) and Harvard University (May-September 2016).

His research interests revolve around thermal properties at the nanoscale in a variety of materials ranging from thin film organic glasses to single semiconductor nanowires. Nanocalorimetry, a technique developed in his group between 2003-2005, has been used to understand the influence of thickness on phase transitions of a variety of materials, including antiferromagnetic transitions in 1.5 nm thick layers or glass transitions in organic glasses down to 4 nm thickness. A related field in which Prof. Rodríguez-Viejo is interested is nanoscale thermal transport and thermoelectricity, with a special focus on understanding the impact of size and disorder in the thermal conductance of a variety of materials.

He currently gives lectures at the UAB at undergraduate and graduate level on Introductory Physics, Physics of Nanomaterials, Phase Transformations and Quantum Physics. He is actively involved in the PhD Programme of the UAB’s Physics Department (Physics and Materials Science), of which he has been supervisor over the period 2003-2008. Since May 2019 he is the coordinator of the Master in Advanced Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, in which various institutes participate: UAB, ICN2, ICMAB, and IMB-CNM. He has also supervised many PhD students.

Prof. Rodríguez-Viejo has been the Vicedirector of MATGAS, a non-profit research organization with partnership from Air Products, UAB and CSIC, representing UAB from March 2008 to April 2015. His team received the Fundación Repsol Entrepreneurs’ Prize in the “Ideas” category in 2015 and the “Projects” one in 2016. He is co-founder of FutureSiSens, a start-up devoted to the development and commercialization of new thermal sensors. Outside work, he enjoys birdwatching and mountain hiking and is an enthusiastic volleyball fan with three family members actively playing this sport.