Albert Figuerola Silvestre
Ramón y Cajal Fellowship from 2011
I got my Bs. C. in Chemistry in 1999 at the Universitat de Barcelona. One year later I finished my Experimental Master and I joined the PhD programm at the same university under the supervision of Prof. Joan Ribas and Carmen Diaz. In 2005 I obtained my PhD after the defense of the experimental work on the synthesis and magnetic characterization of mixed molecular compounds of transition metal (d) and lanthanide (f) ions. During that period I acquired several skills in the synthesis of molecular coordination complexes. The use of magnetometric techniques as well as Electron Spin Resonance (ESR) spectroscopy for their magnetic characterization was also a crucial part of my research. I also performed several scientific stages abroad in order to further characterize my complexes. The groups of Dr. Dante Gatteschi in Italy, Dr. Vassilis Tangoulis in Greece and Dr. Hans Hartl in Germany are among them.
From 2006 to 2011 I was a member of the group of Dr. Liberato Manna in Italy, where I worked as a postdoctoral researcher on the synthesis and structural characterization of nanostructured inorganic materials. In particular my research was focused on the size and shape control of particles made of metals, oxides and semiconductors. Their magnetic, electronic and/or optical properties were carefully studied and correlated with their size and their structural and morphological characteristics. From the end of 2009 I'm the Scientific Leader for the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT) partner in the european MAGNIFYCO project (www.magnifyco.eu). Our task consists mainly in the synthesis of novel nanostructured magnetic materials for antitumoral hyperthermia treatments and I supervise the experimental work concerning materials sciences research in this direction.
In May 2011 I joined the GMMF group in the Universitat de Barcelona as a Ramón y Cajal researcher. My research line in the group deals with the synthesis of novel inorganic nanoparticles, with special emphasis on the prepartion of hybrid nanocrystals. In addition, the possibility to exploit coordination chemistry as a way to functionalize nanoparticles surface is also strongly addressed.
RELATED PUBLICATIONS
“Correlating Magneto-Structural Properties to Hyperthermia Performance of Highly Monodisperse Iron Oxide Nanoparticles Prepared by a Seeded-Growth Route”, Michael Levy, Alessandra Quarta, Ana Espinosa, Albert Figuerola, Claire Wilhelm, Mar Garcia-Hernandez, Alessandro Genovese, Andrea Falqui, Damien Alloyeau, Raffaella Buonsanti, Pantaleo Davide Cozzoli, Miguel Angel Garcia, Florence Gazeau and Teresa Pellegrino, Chemistry of Materials, 23, 2011, 4170-4180.
“Epitaxial CdSe-Au Nanocrystal Heterostructures by Thermal Annealing”, Albert Figuerola, Marijn Van Huis, Marco Zanella, Alessandro Genovese, Sergio Marras, Andrea Falqui, Henny W. Zandbergen Roberto Cingolani and Liberato Manna, Nano Letters , 2010, 10, 3028-3036.
“End-to-End Assembly of Shape-Controlled Nanocrystals via a Nanowelding Approach Mediated by Gold Domains”, Albert Figuerola, Isabella R. Franchini, Angela Fiore, Rosanna Mastria, Andrea Falqui, Giovanni Bertoni, Sara Bals, Gustaaf Van Tendeloo, Stefan Kudera, Roberto Cingolani and Liberato Manna, Advanced Materials, 2009, 21, 550-554.
“One-Pot Synthesis and Characterization of Size-Controlled Bimagnetic FePt-Iron Oxide Heterodimer Nanocrystals”, Albert Figuerola, Angela Fiore, Riccardo Di Corato, Andrea Falqui, Cinzia Giannini, Edoardo Micotti, Alessandro Lascialfari, Maurizio Corti , Roberto Cingolani, Teresa Pellegrino, Pantaleo Davide Cozzoli and Liberato Manna, Journal of the American Chemical Society, 2008, 130, 1477-1487.
“Ferromagnetic Coupling in Trinuclear, Partial Cubane CuII Complexes with a μ3-OH Core: Magnetostructural Correlations”, Biswarup Sarkar, Mau Sinha Ray, Yi-Zhi Li, You Song, Albert Figuerola, Eliseo Ruiz, Jordi Cirera, Joan Cano and Ashutosh Ghosh, Chemistry-A European Journal, 2007, 13, 9297-9309.
BOOKS
“Hybrid Nanocrystals: Synthesis, characterization and optical and magnetic properties”. Sasanka Deka, Albert Figuerola, Dirk Dorfs, Liberato Manna. Encyclopedia of Semiconductor Nanotechnology, American Scientific Publishers. In Press.