Biography

I am interested in complexity and emergent phenomena in nanophotonic systems. My research background is primarily in disordered photonics, focusing on the role of fabrication disorder in photonic nanostructures where the components (scatterers) exhibit short- and long-range spatial correlations. Disorder, randomness, and broken symmetries are ubiquitous in nature, appearing across vastly different length scales, from atomic lattices to intergalactic dust. Entropy induces imperfection and disorder in various materials at scales comparable to the wavelength of different waves (light, mechanical, or electronic). This ultimately leads to multiple scattering and complex phenomena, resulting in thermal heat, electrical resistance, light diffusion, or light localization.

I have mostly explored “frozen” systems, where the structure and dynamics are fixed and linear, respectively. However, in these systems, it is still possible to observe intriguing phenomena when disorder and imperfections appear at length scales similar to visible and near-infrared electromagnetic wavelengths. While this may initially seem problematic, it can also be used to our advantage in technologies involving the emission or propagation of light, such as energy harvesting, imaging, lasing, quantum optics, or information generation and processing.

Recently, I have become increasingly interested in nonlinear dynamics and their interplay with fundamental light-matter coupling mechanisms from which interesting emergent phenomena arise. My primary scientific goal now is to exploit these phenomena for information processing.

In December 2021, I was apointed tenured researcher (Científico Titular) at the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC). I am setting up a research line on complex optomechanics at the Material Science Institute in Madrid.