Ángel Rubio Secades
Basic Research 2014PhD in Physical Sciences and Director of the NanoBio Spectroscopy Group at the University of the Basque Country.
Ángel Rubio, aged 48. Since late 2011, he has held the post of External Director at the Max Planck Society in Berlin, in addition to his professorship in condensed matter physics at the University of the Basque Country. Furthermore, from July 2014, he will take up the post of Theory Director at the Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter (MPSD) in Hamburg.
He has pioneered two new fields of research within physics, which have subsequently been taken up by research groups in other countries. The first involves the creation of new structures for nanotechnology that can be used for the transmission of electromagnetic fields. The other is the development of a new theory to explain how light is absorbed or emitted by bodies, which will enable the creation of new materials with desired properties and has led to the establishment of a European infrastructure whose central hub is located in San Sebastián. She has also established the Advanced Materials Modelling Centre in Zaragoza.
Jury rulingThe jury for the Rei Jaume I Prize for Basic Research, meeting in Valencia, has unanimously decided to award the 2014 prize to Mr Ángel Rubio Secades.
He is a world-renowned theorist in nanosciences and the physics of matter. He has made decisive contributions to the theory and methods of electronic structure in order to explain the properties of materials, particularly those with novel nanostructures. His work provides a fundamental insight into the design of real-world devices.
