Prof. Asunción Fernández graduated in Chemistry (1980) and Physics (1984). She carried out her PhD work at “Max-Planck Institut für Strahlenchemie” obtaining the Dr. rer. nat. degree at the University Dortmund (Germany) (1983) on the subject of photocatalytic H2 production from water solutions. In 1984 she joined the Materials Science Institute of Seville (Spain), where she is leading the “Nanostructured Materials & Microstructure” group. In 2012 she stablished at the ICMS the Laboratory for Nanoscopies and Spectroscopies LANE, supported by the regional REGPOT program of the European Commission. Her research activities have been mainly focused on the physical-chemical study of nanomaterials being visiting researcher at: the Fritz-Haber-Institut, Max-Planck-Geselschaft (Germany); the Institut für Anorganische Chemie II der Universität Erlanguen-Nürnberg (Germany); the EMPA laboratories (Swittzerland); the Physics Department Univ. Namur (Belgium) and the GREMI Laboratory, CNRS-Univ. Orléans (France). At present she is working in the application of magnetron sputtering, and plasma assisted methodologies, for the development of nanocomposite structures and catalytic coatings.
Paula Navascués acquired her doubled BSc degree in Physics and in Materials Engineering at the University of Seville in 2017. During the last year of this period, she did her BSc Thesis in Atmospheric-pressure PECVD at the Materials Science Institute of Seville. During 2018 and 2022 she did her Ph.D. thesis in Plasma-Catalysis at the Materials Science Institute of Seville, with the title Atmospheric pressure plasma sources for more sustainable chemical processes and environmental applications. During these years, she studied different processes such as the synthesis of ammonia, its decomposition to produce hydrogen and the elimination of CO2 using packed-bed plasma reactors. Since the 1st of March 2022 she is working as a PostDoc in the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Material Science (Empa) in the Plasma & Coating group in St. Gallen. Her research is now focused on PECVD processes carried out with low-pressure plasma reactors.
Education
Major Activities
Honors and Awards
Dr. Lidia Contreras Bernal obtained her Chemistry degree from the University of Seville in 2012. In 2014 she completed the Master in Advanced Studies in Chemistry (2014) from the University of Seville. After that she continued her scientific formation working as Research Assistant at the Institute of Natural Resources and Agrobiology of Seville (2015) and in 2016 she was granted with a Pre-Doctoral fellowship to carry out her PhD research at the University Pablo de Olavide in Seville. In 2019 she defended her Thesis in Chemistry-Physics entitled “Metal-halide perovskite for photoconversion: fabrication at ambient conditions and photoelectrochemical characterization”. Her research was focused on the synthesis and characterization of nanomaterials for solar devices as well as on the characterization of these solar cells using optical and optoelectronic techniques such as impedance spectroscopy.
Dr. Jorge A. Budagosky has obtained his Diploma in Advanced Studies in Physics from the University of Valencia, defending his PhD at this University in 2011 with the title “Effect of strain in the structural, electronic and optical properties of self-assembled GaN/AlN quantum dots”.
In 2011 he started his postdoc at the University of Antwerp (Belgium) working in 2Optical properties of semiconductor quantum dots and quantum wires with complex shapes under moderate and strong external magnetic fields”. After this period (2013), he moved to the Institute for Biocomputation and Physics of Complex Systems at the University of Zaragoza, to work in “Time dynamics and control in nanostructures for magnetic recording and energy applications”. In 2016 he continued his research in computational physics at the Donostia International Physics Center in San Sebastián-Donostia, working in Theoretical Spectroscopy and on the “Development of efficient ab-initio computational methods for the calculation of the response function of realistic crystals.”
Javier Castillo-Seoane is a Ph.D. student from the Nanotechnology on Surfaces and Plasma Lab of the Institute of Materials Science of Seville. He is B.Sc. in Physics and Materials Engineering and M.Sc. in Science and Technology of New Materials. He is curretly working on the development of new nanostructures for their implemetantion in optoelectronic applications such as photovoltaics cells, LEDs and sensors using plasma and vacuum techniques.
Fernando Núñez Gálvez is PhD. Candidate in the Nanotechnology on Surfaces and Plasma group developing his work completely in the Institute of Science Materials of Seville. He was graduated in the double degree of Chemistry and Materials Engineering between the years 2015-2020 by the University of Seville. During this years he did a short stay in Czech Republic (Univerzitá Pardubice, Faculty of Chemical Technology) due to the Erasmus Program. He also received a research grant from the Ministery to develop his final thesis of the degree. After that, he realized a master in Nanoscience and Materials Technology in the University of Cádiz. Finally he was hired as a Researcher position by a Garantia Juvenil program where he is nowadays and where he is realizing his doctoral thesis.
Dr. Sanchez-Valencia is a physicist and materials engineer. He developed his Ph.D. at the Institute of Materials Science of Seville (CSIC-Univ.Seville), which was defended in 2010. Then, he started his postdoc at EMPA-Dübendorf (Switzerland) on the fabrication of atomically precise carbon-based nanomaterials. In 2014, he returned to the Institute of Materials Science of Seville, first with a Marie Skłodowska-Curie action and after with a “Ramon y Cajal” 5-year national contract. Recently, he obtained a tenured scientist permanent position at the same institute. His research is focused on the fabrication and characterization of functional nanomaterials for advanced applications such as photonics, photovoltaics, electronics, and energy harvesting.
Dr. Mª Carmen López Santos has more than 15 years of experience in the development of multifunctional surfaces at the micro- and nano-scale through the use of vacuum and plasma techniques with energy, protective, optical, biomedical or agricultural applications. She is co-author of 68 scientific papers (h-index = 19, 1000 citations, 6 covers), including publications in Advanced Energy Materials, Advanced Optical Materials, Applied Materials Today or ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces. She is principal investigator of a national and a regional research projects as well as of an infrastructure one for the acquisition of a goniometer for surface contact angle measurements in controlled environments (total funding of €257,000). She has participated as a researcher in 29 projects, 3 of them European, and is co-author of 3 patents.
She graduated in Physics and Materials Engineering, obtaining her PhD from the University of Seville in 2009, and later moved to the Physics Department of the University of Namur (Belgium) in a postdoctoral stay of 2 years. She rejoined the Nanotechnology in Surfaces and Plasma group at the Institute of Materials Science of Seville and she is currently a Ramón y Cajal researcher at the University of Seville in the Department of Applied Physics I. Her expertise is dedicated to the development and characterization of multifunctional surfaces by vacuum and plasma technology for advanced applications, mainly in the control of surface wetting and its anti-icing and repellent properties. Moreover, she has recently been involving in the study of the effects of plasma technology on seed germination.
Dr. Ángel Barranco (born in Jaen) obtained his bachelor in Chemistry from the University of Granada (1995) and a Ph.D. degree in Physical Chemistry in the University of Seville (2002). He worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the CNRS in Poitiers (France) and EMPA-ETH Thun (Switzerland) until 2005 when he was awarded a “Ramon y Cajal” contract to move back to the Materials Science Institute of Seville. He got a tenured scientist position in CSIC in 2007 and a senior scientist position in 2017. His research is focused on the development of functional nanomaterials by vacuum and plasma-assisted deposition with applications in photonics, energy, sensing, and biomaterials and in the development of devices incorporating these new materials. He has been the principal investigator of more than 30 national and European projects and contracts with companies and supervisor of 9 doctoral theses in materials science.
Mr. Xabier García-Casas is currently a Ph.D. student. Graduated in Physics and Materials Engineering, and master in Science and Technology of novel Materials in the University of Seville, he is the recipient of an FPU fellowship and was hired as a predoctoral researcher by the Spanish Research Council (CSIC). He was awarded the Federation of the European Materials Society (FEMS) Master Thesis Award in 2021. His interests include 1D and 3D nanoelectronics, energy harvesting devices, and laser processing of surfaces.
Ana Borrás Since 2011, Ana Borras (Seville, 1980) is a tenured scientist in the Spanish National Scientific Council (CSIC). After completing her Ph. D. at the University of Seville (2007) she moved to EMPA-ETH Thun to work in the synthesis of small-molecule nanowires and organic nanocomposite thin films. She currently belongs to the Nanotechnology on Surfaces Laboratory of the Materials Science Institute of Seville (ICMS) where she leads the research line Multifunctional One Dimensional Nanomaterials devoted to the development and applications of complex hybrid and heterostructured 1D and 3D materials fabricated by vacuum and plasma deposition methods. Ana Borras holds the ERC Starting Grant 3DScavengers aimed at the fabrication of multisource energy harvesters and hybrid nanogenerators. She is the proud mom of three kids, Laura, Sandra, and Ángel.
Dr. Ali Ghaffarinejad is a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Material Science at Seville (ICMS), which is part of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), working on hybrid Nanogenerators and drop energy harvesting. He received his B.Sc. degree in Electronic Engineering and M.Sc. degree in Bioelectronics from Iran University of Science and Technology (IUST). He completed his doctoral studies in November 2019 earning the grade “Excellent” for the thesis. His research interests are design, modeling, fabrication, and characterization of Triboelectric, Piezoelectric, and Hybrid nanogenerators and their power management circuits.
Abraham Lin is a senior researcher fellow at the University of Antwerp in Belgium. He obtained his B.S.E from the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, Department of Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Sciences (2012), and in 2017, he completed his PhD in Biomedical Engineering at Drexel University. Since then, he has held a dual appointment in the Plasma Lab for Applications in Sustainability and Medicine-Antwerp (PLASMANT) and the Center for Oncological Research (CORE).
Abraham has served on numerous national and international committees including the Management Committee for the European Cooperation in Science & Technology (COST) Action, editorial boards of special issues for multiple peer-review journals, and local organizing committees for conferences and workshops. He has more than 30 peer-reviewed publications, 5 patent applications based on his work, and in 2021, he was awarded the Robert Oppenheimer Award by the University of Antwerp Research Council for his research excellence. He and his collaborators have investigated biomedical applications of non-thermal plasma ranging from neuroregeneration to cancer immunotherapy. His current work focuses on understanding the fundamental interactions of non-thermal plasma with tumors and the tumor microenvironment as well as the standardization of plasma treatment for clinical translation.
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Masaharu Shiratani received the B. E., M. E., and D. E. degrees from Kyushu University, Japan, in 1983, 1985, and 1990, respectively. Since 2006, he has been a Professor, Graduate School of Information Science and Electrical Engineering. Currently, he is also the Dean of Institute of Advance Study, the Director of the Center of Plasma Nanointerface Engineering, and the Director of Quantum and Photonics Technology Research Center, Kyushu University. His current research interests include plasma applications including plasma CVD, nano-processing, solar cells, plasma agriculture, and quantum computing.
Born in 1972, Davide Barreca got his MsC degree in Chemistry (110/110 cum laude) in 1996 and his PhD at Padova University in 2000. After a Post-Doctoral research grant, D.B. was appointed CNR Researcher in 2001. From 2002 to 2019, he has been Senior Researcher, and since 2020 he is a CNR Research Director.
Since 1999, D.B. has been contract professor for PhD/Material School courses and for various Chemistry and PhD courses in Padova University. He actually teaches General and Inorganic Chemistry for the Environmental Science and Technology Bachelor Degree – Padova University.
The research group to which D.B. belongs has matured an internationally recognized know-how in the design and vapor phase fabrication of functional materials, and has progressively extended the activities to a broad range of multi-functional metal-oxide nanosystems, from thin films to ordered nano-arrays with controlled morphologies, for specific advanced applications in sensing, energetics and photocatalysis. The research activity of D. Barreca is so far documented by more than 330 papers (H-index = 54), various patents and 30 invited talks/seminars at national/international conferences, foreign universities and other scientific events.
For the significant results achieved during his career, he received various awards, such as the Vincenzo Caglioti–Accademia dei Lincei Prize (2008), the Prize for Strategic Relevance/Excellence Results – CNR Researchers (2009), the SAPIO Junior Prize for Italian research (2010) and the Top 1% reviewer award in Cross-Fields – Publons – Global Peer Review Awards 2019 – Materials Science. In 2020-21, he was included among the Top Italian Scientists in Chemistry. In 2020-21 he has been included among the Top Italian Scientists in Chemistry (TIS) and the Top 2% Scientists list – World Ranking Scientists – Stanford University – Italia Career 2019.
He was/is local responsible of national and EU (FP7-ITN and NMP) projects and of industrial contractships. He is/was tutor of various BSc/MSc/PhD theses, and responsible for PhD/Post-Doc formation. He is member of the International EUROCVD Board, associate editor of Surface Science Spectra and member of the Editorial Board of Materials. He has been European Editor of Journal of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (2013-2021) and of Nanoscience & Nanotechnology Letters (2009-2021).
D.B. was member of Scientific/Organizing Congress Committees, such as EUROCVD17 (Austria, 2009), ICACC (USA, 2013), CIMTEC (Italy, 2014), ISMANAM (Rome, 2018) and E-MRS symposia (2013, 2016, 1017, 2019 and 2021). He has been evaluator and panel member for the Chemical Sciences Panel – Institutes of the Czech Academy of Sciences and for the National Agency for the Evaluation of the Research Quality (ANVUR), and referee for national/international research projects, book proposals and more than 190 international journals.
Dr. Liangliang Lin is an associate professor in the School of Chemical and Material Engineering, Jiangnan University, China. He received his bachelor degree from Hefei University of Technology (China) in 2010, followed by the master degree from Zhejiang University (China) in 2013, and the Ph.D. degree from Eindhoven University of Technology (Netherlands) in 2018. His research focuses on process intensification using plasma technology and microreactors and their applications (e.g., sustainable process development, nanomaterials synthesis and processing).
Currently, his ongoing work deals with the integration of microfluidics with plasma to form «microfluidic plasma» as a novel process intensification strategy for chemistry and chemical engineering. He has published more than 40 publications in internationally renowned chemical engineering journals (e.g., AIChE J., CES, IECR, and CEJ). He was also awarded Innovative and Entrepreneurial Scholar of Jiangsu Province in 2019, «333» Young Scholar Project of Jiangsu Province in 2022.
Prof. Krasimir Vasilev is currently a Matthew Flinders Professor and a Professor of Biomedical Nanotechnology in the College of Medicine and Public Health at Flinders University. Prior to taking a position at Flinders University, Professor Vasilev had built and led at The University of South Australia (UniSA) a large and highly productive team, which grew to more than 20 postdocs and PhD students. His team is well connected having deep collaborative networks within Australia and internationally, and is strongly engaged with industry, end users, government agencies and community.
Professor Vasilev has attracted in excess of 20M dollars in research funding from Government competitive grants and Industry, published more than 270 papers and has been awarded several prestigious Research Fellowships from ARC, NHMRC and the Humboldt Foundation, and other awards such as the John A. Brodie Medal for achievements in Chemical Engineering in 2016, and the election of a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC) in 2017 and a Fellow of the International Association of Advanced Materials in 2022. His contribution to UniSA has been recognised by several awards including the UniSA Research Excellence Award in the Mid-Career category (2018), and the Division of ITEE Excellence Award for Leadership in Research (2018), and the UniSA Interdisciplinary Award (2019) for his work across disciplines.
Professor Vasilev has established international reputation and leadership in his field evident (in addition to the awards mentioned above) by regular invitations to deliver plenary and keynote lectures at international conferences, and prestigious universities, institutes and companies around the world. The foundation of his research program was his revolutionary approach to the nanoengineering of plasma polymer films, which vastly expanded the opportunities for this technology. His publications have been cited more than 9600 times and his H-index = 54 (M-index ~ 3.
Professor Vasilev’s research has a very strong translational focus. He works extensively with industry to translate research findings to tangible commercial products. Key examples for this are 1) recently translated technology (via a $5,000,000 from the CRC-P program, $2.5M industry cash) for bladder cancer diagnostics to the manufacturing facility of Motherson Innovations in South Australia. The device is currently undergoing clinical trials; 2) A $6,000,000 ($3M industry cash) project with Corin Group focussed on translation an antibacterial surface modification to the company’s hip and knee implants. His translational work involving the entire spectrum of activities from research discoveries to commercial products was a key strength allowing him to win in 2020 the prestigious and highly competitive NHMRC Investigator Award ($2,738,000 over 5 year).
Kostya (Ken) Ostrikov (Queensland University of Technology, Australia) is a prolific cross-disciplinary researcher, collaborative research catalyst, enthusiastic community leader, specializing in the plasma and nanotechnology fields. His achievements over 24 active career years include an H-index of 84, with near 33,000 (near 20,000 since 2017) citations (Google Scholar); multiple high-profile honours, fellowships and awards, e.g., the recent Humboldt Prize/Award (2021-26), election as a Foreign Fellow of the European Academy of Sciences and Academia Europaea. Professor Ostrikov is renowned for the studies of plasma effects in the formation and modification of matter with nanoscale features. He engaged, led, mentored and supervised or co-supervised >70 postdoctoral and higher-level researchers, and >100 students.
David Neil Ruzic is the Abel Bliss Professor of Engineering and has been in the Department of Nuclear, Plasma and Radiological Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign since 1984 after receiving his PhD in Physics from Princeton University and post-doctoral work at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory. His research centers on the interaction of plasmas with materials. He is a Fellow of the American Nuclear Society, a Fellow of the American Vacuum Society, a Fellow of the American Physical Society, and a Fellow of the International Society for Optics and Photonics (SPIE). In 2000 he won the International Gaede-Langmuir award from the AVS and the Fusion Technology Prize from IEEE.
He has published over 220 referred journal papers, 2 books, and 6 book chapters and has been awarded 11 patents. He has produced 36 PhD students and 59 thesis MS students. His current group consists of 1 research scientist, 2 post-docs, 15 graduate and 25 undergraduate research assistants In 2017, he headed the effort to bring a mid-sized hybrid stellarator / tokamak to Illinois, now called HIDRA, capable of 1 Tesla fields with a minor radius of 19 cm and a major radius of 72 cm. In 2020, he founded the Illinois Plasma Institute located on the UIUC Research Park, which is funded by industry to do translational research.
Ana Gómez-Ramírez is an Associate Professor at the Atomic, Molecular and Nuclear Physics Department of the University of Seville. She obtained her PhD degree in 2011 at the University of Granada. In 2012 she did a postdoctoral study at the University of Bayreuth (Germany). Later on she joined the Nanotechnology on Surfaces and Plasma research group directed by Prof. González-Elipe and Prof. Cotrino at the University of Sevilla, Spain. There, she started a new research line focused on atmospheric-pressure plasmas. She got a “Juan de la Cierva” grant and was involved in several R&D contracts that allowed her to work as a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Sevilla until 2022, when she obtained a position as associate professor. Her current research field deals with atmospheric-pressure plasmas and their characterization to generate valuable chemicals or to induce the decomposition of wastes and contaminants and at the compression and description of physical mechanisms involved in such processes.
Ahmad Hamdan received the B.Sc. degree in physics from Université Libanaise, Tripoli, Lebanon, in 2008, and the M.Sc. degree in physics and the Ph.D. degree in plasma physics and applications from the Université de Lorraine, Nancy, France, in 2010 and 2013, respectively.
He was a Post-Doctoral Fellow with the Université de Montréal, Montreal, QC, Canada, from 2013 to 2014, and the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Thuwal, Saudi Arabia, from 2015 to 2017. From 2017 to 2021, he was an Assistant Professor, where he has been an Associate Professor with the Université de Montréal since 2022. His current research interests include electrical discharges in and in contact with liquid media for fundamental investigations and environmental applications, namely, water treatment, fuel reforming, and nanomaterial synthesis.
Mohamed Chaker has been a professor at the Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique (INRS) in Varennes, Quebec, Canada since 1989. Holding a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Plasmas applied to micro and nanomanufacturing technologies since 2003, he has published over 300 articles in peer-review journals (14000 citations, H-index=66 according to Google Scholar) in various domains, including advanced plasma sources characterization (high-density plasmas and laser-induced plasmas) for applications to thin film synthesis, nanometer pattern transfer, nanoparticles production and device fabrication.
From 1999 to 2002, he has been the director of the Center Energie et Matériaux of INRS, then from 2002 to 2005, the director of the Center Énergie Matériaux Télécommunications. He played a leadership role in the development of Quebec consortia (Prompt-Québec, NanoQuébec). From 2005, he is the director of the Laboratory of Micro and Nanofabrication (LMN) of INRS.
Dr. Francisco J. Aparicio graduated in Physics at the University of Seville and received his PhD in Materials Science and Technology from the same university in 2011. He developed two post-doctoral contracts at the University of Trento (Italy) and the University of Mons (Belgium); the latter about the development of advanced organic thin films by plasma techniques. In 2014, he moved to the Nanotechnology on Surfaces and Plasma laboratory of the Institute of Materials Science of Seville (University of Seville – CSIC) where he won a “Juan de la Cierva Incorporation” national research contract. In 2018, he joined the technological company ALTER TECHNOLOGY TÜV NORD to develop and lead the Scanning Acoustic Microscopy Laboratory.
Since 2021, he holds a distinguished researcher contract at the University of Seville. His researches deal with the device-oriented development of new vacuum and plasma deposition procedures and nanomaterials for multifunctional applications such as photonics, flexible electronics, energy, and biomaterials.
Pascal Brault, Research Director at the GREMI Laboratory (UMR7344, CNRS – University of Orléans) in Orléans, France. He has a PhD in Atomic and Molecular Physics (1987) and an accreditation to supervise research (since 1992) from the University of Orléans. His ongoing work deals with molecular dynamics simulations, and technology transfer of plasma-designed materials for energy and plasma treatment of polluted water. He is author of more than 150 publications in internationally renowned journals, and author and co-author of more than 300 communications in national and international conferences including 50 on invitation. Pascal BRAULT has supervised more than 20 doctoral theses and accreditations to supervise research (HDR). Moreover, he is a Referee for several internationally renowned journals (about 25). He was granted Alexander von Humboldt Fellow in 1992–1993 by the Max Planck Institute für Strömungsforschung, Göttingen, Germany headed by Professor Jan-Peter Toennies.
Eva Kovacevic (F) is a full professor and researcher at GREMI Institute, CNRS&University of Orléans , France. She obtained her Diploma and Magisterium in Zagreb, Croatia 1996 and 1999 (pre-Bologna system), followed by PhD at Ruhr University Bochum 2006, and Habilitation at University of Orleans. Her activities concern low-temperature plasmas, their applications and diagnostics, as well as material analysis. She has extensive experience in processes and diagnostics for surface functionalisation and growth of conductive carbons. She is a review editor at European Journal of Applied Physics D, editor at European Physical Letters, Contributions to Plasma Physics, and Journal of Physics Communications (IoP).
Obtained Rectors Award in Zagreb 1996, DAAD award 2006 in Bochum, Heinrich Hertz Fellowship 2008. She is currently involved in numerous projects: PI of ARD, ANR and APR projects (France), experience in working on SBF and BMBF projects (Germany), or FET OPEN project. She is executive member of European Physical Society, Electrochemical Society, organizes several international and national conferences, was in several bodies of her university and is nominated member of French National Research Council.
Dr. Ramón Escobar Galindo (10-01-1973) is a Full Professor at the University of Seville (US) in the Department of Applied Physics I (2019-). Graduated in Physical Sciences from the Complutense University of Madrid in 1997 (Spain) received his doctorate in 2003 from the Technical University of Delft (Netherlands). He initially developed his scientific career at the Institute of Materials Science in Madrid (ICMM-CSIC) and at the Autonomous University of Madrid (2004-2014). Subsequently, he worked for 3 years (2014-2017) as director of the Materials program in the solar thermal energy department at Abengoa Research. Between 2017-2019 he worked as a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Materials Sciences and Metallurgical Engineering and Inorganic Chemistry of the University of Cádiz (UCA). In 2015, he completed his training with a Master in Technology Management awarded by Loyola University (Spain) and Georgetown University (USA).
He has been a professor (2008-2009) at the Department of Applied Physics at the Autonomous University of Madrid (UAM) and associate professor (2012-2014) at the Carlos III University of Madrid (UC3M). Internationally, he has taught at the MsC course «Functional Coatings and Thin Films» at Cranfield University in the United Kingdom (2015-2017) and at the Summer School at Shantou University in China (2017). In 2021, he co-founded the technology-based company Matersia Proyectos y Materials SL with the participation of the US and the UCA
Dr. Escobar has participated in more than 25 R&D projects (being the principal investigator in 13 of them) including national (Cenit, CDTI, Consolider, Retos) and European (FP6, FP7, H2020) programs as well as contracts with companies. His main lines of research have focused on the development of advanced multifunctional materials in thin films for energy applications (in particular concentrated solar thermal energy), optical and biomedical applications. Co-author of 119 published scientific articles (H index = 25) and more than 170 contributions to international conferences (including more than 25 invited or plenary conferences).
He has co-directed 4 doctoral theses and is a co-inventor of 4 patents. Between 2013 and 2016 he was the representative of Spain in the International Union of Science and Technology Del Vacío, (IUVSTA) in the Thin Films division. Since 2019 he is a member of the scientific committee of the Spanish Association of Vacuum and its Applications (ASEVA) and of the Commission for the synchrotron beamline time allocation of the Spanish CRG SPLINE in BM25 at ESRF. He belongs to the Spanish Society of Materials (SOCIEMAT) and the Royal Spanish Physical Society (RSEF) as well as to the AENOR GET15 / GT 5 committee «Physicochemical characterization of surfaces».
Prof. Volker Hessel studied chemistry at Mainz University/D. 1994: Institut für Mikrotechnik Mainz/Germany (Director R&D); 2005: Professor Eindhoven University of Technology/NL; 2018:
Deputy Dean (Research), Professor University of Adelaide, Australia; 2019: part-time professor University of Warwick/UK.
He is author of 559 peer-reviewed publications (h-index: 79). He received the AIChE Excellence in Process Development Research Award, IUPAC ThalesNano Prize in Flow Chemistry, and all EU’s research excellence grants (ERC Advanced/Proof of Concept/Synergy, FET OPEN). He was authority in a 35-teamed Parliament Enquete Commission «Future Chemical Industry” and is Research Director of the Andy Thomas Centre for Space Resources.
Dr. Dirk Hegemann is leading the group Plasma & Coating at the research institute Empa in St.Gallen, CH. He mainly deals with plasma etching and deposition processes on polymer materials including roll-to-roll processing and transfer to industry. He joins the board of directors of the International Plasma Chemistry Society, the Swiss Physical Society, and the Swiss Vacuum Society and acts as editor-in-chief for Plasma Processes and Polymers.