Short biography
ICREA Research Professor and Head of the Atomic Manipulation and Spectroscopy group at the Catalan Institute of Nanotechnology (ICN) since April 2006. Associate Professor at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona since September 2007. Pietro Gambardella graduated cum laude at the University of Genova, Italy, and earned his PhD in physics from the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in 2000. He was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Max-Planck-Institut für Festkörperforschung in Stuttgart, and a Research Associate at the EPFL before joining ICREA. He is the recipient of the 2003 ABB award of the Swiss National Science Foundation, the Prix Latsis Universitaire, the 2007 Young Scientist Award of the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility, and of a Starting Grant from the European Research Council. Research interests
Understanding the way atoms and electrons organize in small structures and learning how to assemble them are two basic steps in the quest for novel materials and phenomena. Our aim is to control the interplay of the structural, electronic, and magnetic properties of matter, in particular in layered heterostructures, metal-organic complexes, and nanoparticles. The observation of matter on the scale of atoms and its manipulation require combining state-of-the-art electron microscopy and spectroscopy techniques that are available in our laboratory as well as in large-scale european research facilities.
For further information see:
http://www.icn.cat/ams Key words
Magnetic and electronic properties of thin films, molecules, and nanostructures. Spin torques.
Epitaxial growth, self-assembly.
Scanning tunneling microscopy, x-ray absorption spectroscopy, x-ray magnetic dichroism