Full Professor (UPV/EHU)
+34 943 01 8750
enrique.ortega@ehu.eus
Enrique Ortega (San Sebastian, 1963) got his Bachelor (1986) and Ph. D. (1990) in Physics at the Autonomous University of Madrid. Afterwards, he became post-doc at the IBM Yorktown Heights Research Center in New York (1991-1993). He returned to Spain as a junior researcher at the University of Madrid (1993-1995), and moved to san Sebastian as tenure-track in the University of the Basque Country, where he became (2003-) full Professor (Catedrático) of Applied Physics.
His scientific interest is on the physical-chemical properties of surface nanostructures of varied nature. His technical expertise encompasses all electron spectroscopies, and can be considered an expert in synchrotron radiation research. The work on electronic states of metallic thin-film quantum wells (QW) developed in the 90’s is the keystone of his career, but also of the Nanophysics Lab itself. In fact, it prompted the development of physics ideas and analytical frameworks that were later extended to surface nanostructures, particularly step arrays of vicinal surfaces, which in turn fueled the research line that is hall mark of the Nanolab: curved crystal surfaces.
The particular crystal geometry of a curved surface enables simple processing in vacuum and easy-access to distinct crystal orientations on the same sample. For this reason, curved crystal research impregnates a wide number of scientific projects in the Nanolab, which make use of these exotic samples as tunable growth templates. Also experiments using curved samples are aimed at revisiting controversial surface science problems that involve steps, such as faceting, electron scattering at steps, or chemistry and catalysis. Results are impressively clear and demonstrate the tremendous potential of the curved crystal approach for core research in Surface Science.
Ortega’s contributions have been published in more than 160 scientific articles, many of them in highly-ranked journals. He has also presented about 130 invited seminars in Universities/Research centers, international conferences and workshops. Last but not least, since 1996 Enrique Ortega teaches “Physics for Architects” at the School of Architecture of the University of the Basque Country.
