Instrumentation Unit

Unit Leader: Gustavo Ceballos

Main research lines

  • Design, development and improvement of advanced precision instrumentation

  • Modification of commercial instrumentation to match particular experimental requirements

  • Scientific computing

  • Data acquisition

  • 3D-CAD design of precision devices

  • Vacuum technology (HV, UHV)

  • Cryogenics

Instrumentation Unit

The unit provides scientific and technical assistance in applied physics, precision instrumentation, microengineering, nanotechnology, scientific computing and 3D-design of precision devices. Its main goal is to help address challenging instrumentation requirements in both basic and applied research.

In 2021, the unit developed several novel setups to enable new experiments in the fields of magnetometry, spectroscopy, synthesis of nanomaterials, photovoltaics and bio-sensing.

The unit also participated in dissemination activities, contributing its expertise to design and build prototypes and technology demos.

CERCAGINYS is the access platform to the around 200 facilities of all the 41 CERCA institutes.

Unit Leader

Gustavo Ceballos

Head of Research Support Division - Instrumentation Unit
gustavo.ceballos@icn2.cat

Dr Gustavo Ceballos earned his degree in chemistry at the Universidad Central de Venezuela in 1989. He obtained his PhD in 1996 at the Institut für Physikalische und Theoretische Chemie der Universität Bonn (Germany).

In 1997 he moved to the Institut für Experimentalphysik der Freie Universität Berlin to complete his postdoctoral studies, and from 2001 to 2002 he worked at the Low-Temperature Scanning Tunnelling Microscopy Group at the Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society, also in Berlin. From 2002 to 2006 he was a research scientist at the XSTM and Low-Temperature STM of Nanostructures Division at the Laboratorio Nazionale TASC-INFM (Trieste, Italy). In 2006 he joined the then ICN as a senior scientist and eventually created the ICN2 Instrumentation Unit. He actively participates in the research led by the ICN2 Atomic Manipulation and Spectroscopy Group.

Throughout his career Dr Ceballos has made modifications to existing instruments or experimental setups, as well as developing new ones to meet the needs of the new experiments he has devised.

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