Group description

Consolidated Research Group of type A by the Basque Government with reference IT1005-16 made up of personnel from the Departments of Electricity and Electronics and Physics of the Faculty of Science and Technology. The group is the fusion of two previous groups, the nuclear techniques laboratory and the laboratory of optics.

The nuclear techniques laboratory was built between Prof. Plazaola and Prof. Garitaonandia, in it there are unique and singular spectroscopies in the Basque Country like Mössbauer and Positron Annihilation spectroscopies (PAS), with several chains each one. The researches of this laboratory entered the magnetic materials field after building the first Mössbauer spectrometer of the UPV/EHU, very useful for the study of magnetic materials. After, they entered the field of neutron diffusion and synchroton radiation, carrying multiple experiments at the ILL in Grenoble and at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Liverpool. At the same time, Prof. Plazaola introduced himself to studying  from the theoretical point of view  PAS techniques with the group of Prof. de Diego of UCM, thanks to several stays at Helsinki University of Technology, which allowed him to enter the field of electronic/positronic calculations (with Prof. Puska). The incursion helped the group both to train in the positron calculations, fundamental for the interpretation of PAS experimental results, and enter the field of electronic calculations, which allowed to more effectively study the Fe-Al base magnetic intermetallics, that have been the most studied magnetic materials by the group.

The laboratory of optics leaded by prof. García of the UPV/EHU had photoluminescence equipment, complementary to PAS in the study of semiconductors and it gave the way to start the collaboration. Indeed, that was the time to built PAS equipment.

Prof. Plazaola together with Prof. Garitaonandia, expert in Mössbauer, built the nuclear techniques laboratory of the UPV/EHU, which has several Mössbauer and positron annihilation spectroscopy chains. Since then, the research group that leads Prof. Plazaola, along with Profs. Garcia and Garitaonandia, was introduced in other fields than the traditional ones, without leaving aside the latter: magnetic and nobel metal nanoparticles (with Prof. Suzuki), free volumes and their influence on both materials polymeric (with Prof. Lambri, Univ. of Rosario, Argentina), as in biomaterials (with Prof. Contera, Univ of Oxford). Likewise, with different groups of the UPV/EHU, medical doctors and a COST Action, they are after hyperthermia mediated with magnetic nanoparticles as a therapeutic technique. On the other hand, and in collaboration with an UPNA group, they went from the intermetallic ones (without forgetting these) to the magnetic memory materials. Between others, the group has directed 2 thesis in soft magnetic nanostructurated materials, 3 in intermetallic, 1 in compound semiconductors, 1 in positronic calculations, 2 in magnetic nanoparticles, 2 in instrumentation for magnetic hyperthermia, 1 in application of positron spectroscopy in biomedicine and 2 in ferromagnetic alloys with ferromagnetic shape memory. They are currently making very noteworthy contributions in the fields of applications of magnetic nanoparticles, in applications in biomedicine and in alloys with ferromagnetic shape memory. Prof. Plazaola is the Spanish representative of  IBAME (International Board on the Applications of the Mössbauer Effect).