Ángel Rubio (born 27 September 1965 in

Oviedo Oviedo () or Uviéu (Asturian language, Asturian: ) is the capital city of the Principality of Asturias in northern Spain and the administrative and commercial centre of the region. It is also the name of the municipality that contains th ...

) is a Spanish theoretical physicist and director at the Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter in

Hamburg Hamburg (, ; ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg,. is the List of cities in Germany by population, second-largest city in Germany after Berlin and List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, 7th-lar ...

. Rubio is also a Distinguished Research Scientist in computational quantum physics at the

Simons Foundation The Simons Foundation is an American private foundation established in 1994 by Marilyn and James Harris Simons, Jim Simons with offices in New York City. As one of the largest charitable organizations in the United States with assets of over $5 ...

Flatiron Institute The Flatiron Institute is an American internal research division of the Simons Foundation, launched in 2016. The mission of the Flatiron Institute is to advance scientific research through computational methods, including data analysis, theor ...

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

. He is a member of the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, NGO, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the ...

and a fellow of the

American Physical Society The American Physical Society (APS) is a not-for-profit membership organization of professionals in physics and related disciplines, comprising nearly fifty divisions, sections, and other units. Its mission is the advancement and diffusion of ...

Life

Rubio studied physics at the

University of Valladolid The University of Valladolid is a public university located in the city of Valladolid, Valladolid province, autonomous region of Castile and Leon, Spain. Established in the 13th century, it is one of the oldest universities in the world. The ...

, which awarded him a licenciatura in 1988 and a doctorate in 1991. After working as an assistant professor (Profesor Titular Interino de Universidad) at Valladolid for a year, he went to the

University of California at Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after the Anglo-Irish philosopher George Berkele ...

as a postdoctoral fellow in October 1992, where he remained until 1994. He then returned to Valladolid as an Assistant Professor (Profesor Titular de Universidad). In 2001, he moved to the

University of the Basque Country The University of the Basque Country (, ''EHU''; , ''UPV''; officially EHU) is a Spanish public university of the Basque Country (autonomous community), Basque Autonomous Community. Heir of the University of Deusto, University of Bilbao, initial ...

San Sebastián San Sebastián, officially known by the bilingual name Donostia / San Sebastián (, ), is a city and municipality located in the Basque Autonomous Community, Spain. It lies on the coast of the Bay of Biscay, from the France–Spain border ...

, where he has held a professorship since April 2001 and leads a research group on nano-bio-spectroscopy. Rubio's research stays abroad as a visiting professor have included stints at the Laboratoire des Solides Irradiés of the

École polytechnique (, ; also known as Polytechnique or l'X ) is a ''grande école'' located in Palaiseau, France. It specializes in science and engineering and is a founding member of the Polytechnic Institute of Paris. The school was founded in 1794 by mat ...

in Palaiseau (2000-2001), the

Free University of Berlin The Free University of Berlin (, often abbreviated as FU Berlin or simply FU) is a public university, public research university in Berlin, Germany. It was founded in West Berlin in 1948 with American support during the early Cold War period a ...

(2005 as well as 2006-2007), the

University of Montpellier II Montpellier 2 University (Université Montpellier 2) was a French university in the '' académie'' of Montpellier. It was one of the three universities formed in 1970 from the original University of Montpellier. In January 2015, Montpellier 1 Un ...

(2007), and the

in 2014. At the Fritz Haber Institute of the

Max Planck Society The Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science (; abbreviated MPG) is a formally independent non-governmental and non-profit association of German research institutes. Founded in 1911 as the Kaiser Wilhelm Society, it was renamed to the M ...

in Berlin, Rubio was a Distinguished Visiting Scientist from 2009 to 2011. In November 2011, he became an external scientific member and leader of the Theoretical Spectroscopy group. In November 2014, Rubio became the Director and Head of the Theory Department at the Max Planck Institute for Structure and Dynamics of Matter in Hamburg, Germany. Since June 2016, he has been a professor at the

University of Hamburg The University of Hamburg (, also referred to as UHH) is a public university, public research university in Hamburg, Germany. It was founded on 28 March 1919 by combining the previous General Lecture System ('':de:Allgemeines Vorlesungswesen, ...

. In 2017, he became a Distinguished Research Scientist at the Center for Computational Quantum Physics at the

research division of the

Research

Rubio's research concerns theoretical

solid-state physics Solid-state physics is the study of rigid matter, or solids, through methods such as solid-state chemistry, quantum mechanics, crystallography, electromagnetism, and metallurgy. It is the largest branch of condensed matter physics. Solid-state phy ...

, in particular the theory and modeling of the properties of solids and

nanostructure A nanostructure is a structure of intermediate size between microscopic and molecular structures. Nanostructural detail is microstructure at nanoscale. In describing nanostructures, it is necessary to differentiate between the number of dimen ...

s, with a focus on

Carbon nanotube A carbon nanotube (CNT) is a tube made of carbon with a diameter in the nanometre range ( nanoscale). They are one of the allotropes of carbon. Two broad classes of carbon nanotubes are recognized: * ''Single-walled carbon nanotubes'' (''S ...

nanowire file:SnSe@SWCNT.jpg, upright=1.2, Crystalline 2×2-atom tin selenide nanowire grown inside a single-wall carbon nanotube (tube diameter ≈1 nm). A nanowire is a nanostructure in the form of a wire with the diameter of the order of a nanometre ( ...

s, and particularly semiconductor clusters under the influence of

electromagnetic field An electromagnetic field (also EM field) is a physical field, varying in space and time, that represents the electric and magnetic influences generated by and acting upon electric charges. The field at any point in space and time can be regarde ...

s. Rubio and his collaborators work using

numerical methods Numerical analysis is the study of algorithms that use numerical approximation (as opposed to symbolic manipulations) for the problems of mathematical analysis (as distinguished from discrete mathematics). It is the study of numerical methods t ...

. Areas of work include developments in many-particle theory and

time-dependent density functional theory Time-dependent density-functional theory (TDDFT) is a quantum mechanical theory used in physics and chemistry to investigate the properties and dynamics of many-body systems in the presence of time-dependent potentials, such as electric or magne ...

, including ab-initio descriptions of electronic excitations, optical spectroscopy and ultrafast spectroscopy, scanning tunneling microscopy and spectroscopy, and X-ray absorption spectroscopy, as well as the characterization of the electronic and optical properties of nanostructures. He is acknowledged as a pioneer and leader in the area of computational materials physics and one of the founders of modern "theoretical spectroscopy". He is also the originator of the widely used ab initio open-source project "Octopus." He pioneered the development of "quantum electrodynamical density functional theory," focusing on the prediction and characterization of new non-equilibrium states of matter and the modeling of strong light-matter interaction phenomena in materials, nanostructures and molecules.

Honors and awards

* 2021: Fellow of the European Physical Society, EU * 2020: Fellow of the European Academy of Sciences, EU * 2018:

Max Born Medal and Prize The Max Born Medal and Prize is a scientific prize awarded yearly by the German Physical Society (DPG) and the British Institute of Physics (IOP) in memory of the German physicist Max Born, who was a German-Jewish physicist, instrumental in the ...

, Germany / UK * 2016: Election to the

Academia Europaea The Academia Europaea is a pan-European Academy of humanities, letters, law, and sciences. The Academia was founded in 1988 as a functioning Europe-wide Academy that encompasses all fields of scholarly inquiry. It acts as co-ordinator of Europe ...

, EU * 2016 Medal of the Real Sociedad Española de Física, Spain * 2014: Election to the National Academy of Sciences, US * 2014 Premio Rey Jaime I de Investigación Básica, Spain * 2014 Foreign Associate Member of the

, US * 2014 Miller Visiting Professor,

, US * 2010: Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, US * 2006: XVI Dupont Prize in Nanotechnology, Spain * 2005: Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Research Award (Alexander von Humboldt Foundation), Germany * 2004:Fellow of the

(APS), USA * 2004: Sir Allan Sewell Fellow,

Griffith University Griffith University is a public university, public research university in South East Queensland on the Eastern states of Australia, east coast of Australia. The university was founded in 1971, but was not officially opened until 1975. Griffith ...

, Australia

Publications

Rubio is the author of more than 540 papers in peer-reviewed journals. He has been the co-editor of several conference proceedings and textbooks. , he has a Google Scholar h-index of 135 and of 99 on Web of Science.

References

External links

Group Leader: Professor Angel Rubio

Biography at Max Planck Institute

Biography at Simons Foundation
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rubio, Angel 20th-century Spanish physicists 21st-century Spanish physicists Living people Theoretical physicists Max Planck Society people Academic staff of the University of Hamburg 1965 births University of Valladolid alumni Max Planck Institute directors Academic staff of the University of Valladolid People from Oviedo Academic staff of the University of the Basque Country