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At work

I am now happily doing research at the Instituto de Quimica-Fisica "Rocasolano", which I joined as tenured researcher in june 2007, at the Surface Analysis group. Previously I was a professor at the Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, where I have devoted some time to put together a lab (LOMA) at the Center for Microanalysis of Materials (CMAM). Before I was an Assistant Professor at the same place (or the closest thing in Spain so far, a "contrato Ramon y Cajal" -check at the Ramon y Cajal site-). Before, from 1997 to 2002 I was at California, at Sandia National Laboratories/CA. It started as a postdoctoral stay, and ended with me working as a research scientist for the last years. Previously I worked with Prof. J. M. Rojo at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. And all my previous scientific life took place at the Surface Physics Laboratory of the Universidad Autonoma de Madrid. I did my Phd under the direction of Prof. Carmen Ocal at that group (the group leader was and is Prof. Rodolfo Miranda). My Hirsch index in 2009 is 19. You can find a bit more work-related stuff:


  • If you want to check my publication list on the ISI Web of Science, just use as search parameters: AU=(de la figuera J OR delafiguera J)

  • My publications list.

  • I am also a gxsm developer (GPL software for STM analysis and adquisition).

  • You can find some tips and tricks that I found useful (about computers and other stuff).
  • I have also been involved in the spanish equivalent of the AAAS, the AACTE (Association for the advancement of science and technology in Spain). To be frank, science in Spain can use any help you might have available.

Summary of scientific results and interests



  • Academic
  • H-index of 19
  • 3 Invited Book Chapters
  • 44 Publications in Internationally Referred Journals (more than 1050 citations according to the Science Citation Index- 2009).
  • 45 Invited Lectures
  • 71 Contributed Presentations at International Conferences and Symposia
  • 4 research grants as Principal Investigator
  • Awards:
    • Fulbright Fellow (FUL97 2608966) (1997 - 1999)
    • Award to the best PhD Thesis, Universidad Autonoma de Madrid (1995).
    • Research Fellowship from the Spanish Ministry of Education (1988-1992)
    • Fellowship from the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) (1987 - 1988)
  • Employment
    • (2007-now) Tenured researcher, Instituto de Quimica-Fisica "Rocasolano"
    • (2006-2007) Associate Professor, Universidad Autonoma de Madrid
    • (2002-2005) Assistant Professor "Ramon y Cajal", Universidad Autonoma de Madrid
    • (2001-2002) Limited Term Employee, Sandia National Laboratories
    • (1999-2000) Postdoctoral Fellow, Lawrence Berkeley National Lab
    • (1997-1999) Fulbright Fellow for Postdoctoral Studies
    • (1996-1997) Lecturer, Universidad Complutense de Madrid
    • (1995-1996) Lecturer, Universidad Autonoma de Madrid

    • Selected publication list

    1. J. de La Figuera, J. E. Prieto, C. Ocal, R. Miranda. "Scanning Tunneling Microscopy Study of the Growth of Cobalt on Cu(111)" Physical Review B 47 (1993) 13043. This publication has around 150 citations.
    2. K. Pohl, M.C. Bartelt, J. de la Figuera, N.C. Bartelt, J. Hrbek and R.Q. Hwang. "Identifying the forces responsible for self-assembled nanostructures" Nature 397 (1999), 238.
    3. J. de la Figuera, K. Pohl, O.R. de la Fuente, A.K. Schmid, N.C. Bartelt, C.B. Carter and R.Q. Hwang. "Direct Observation of Misfit Dislocation Glide" Phys. Rev. Lett. 86, 3819 (2001).
    4. F. El Gabaly, W. L. Ling, K. F. McCarty, J. de la Figuera "The importance of threading dislocations on the motion of grain boundaries in thin films" Science 308, 1303 (2005).
    5. Farid El Gabaly, Silvia Gallego, M. Carmen Munoz, Laszlo Szunyogh, Peter Weinberger, Kevin F. McCarty, Christof Klein, Andreas K. Schmid, Juan de la Figuera "Imaging Spin Reorientation Transitions in Consecutive Atomic Co layers"
      Phys. Rev. Lett. 96 147202 (2006), (cond-mat/0512220).

    Research Interests

    The main theme of my work has been to understand the behavior and consequences of defects on the surface of a material through the use of imaging (i.e. real space) techniques.
    To characterize properly the surfaces one possibility is to resort to Ultra-High-Vacuum experiments. In UHV while I am familiar and have use often the regular surface science techniques (Auger Electron Spectrocoscopy, Low Energy Electron Diffraction, Surface X-ray Diffraction, etc), I have been specially involved with Scanning Probe Microscopies (SPM) and Low Energy Electron Microscopies (LEEM). To such end, I have programmed data-adquisition systems, tested newly built STMs and designed and build them. In the last years, I have been focussing in Low Energy Electron Microscopy, a technique that employs a low energy electron beam to form a magnified image of the surface at high speed. LEEM is a particular example of the abilities of electron microscopies applied to surfaces, and it is specially useful in dynamic studies when coupled to either spin-polarized electron beams (for probing sample magnetization) or diffraction contrast (for following phase transformations) to gather information on the nanoscale.

    Mail signatures


    Because you should not trust unsigned email, you can find my public keys for:

    Life, the Universe, and Everything

    Well, I have to find time to put more stuff here, but Ines (my daughter) and Ana (my wife) usually have other (better) ideas to spend my time (ok, she also has some ideas to spend her time, as the EU info portal www.hypatia.eu). It didn't get any better with the arrival of my son. Ok, that was some time ago, but seems yesterday.

    But just to give a flavour, I like:

    • To visit friends. Some of them are in the USA, so it is not so straightforward. You can seen all the family here at our annual visit to California...

    • To fool around with Gnu/Linux (towards world domination!) and computers

    • I used to like FPS like Quake II and III (of course under Linux), to have friendly discussions with my friends, but my fingers hurt too much. So when I have some time (which is rare) you can even find me in Second Life. Well, is that playing? Maybe I will put together some day a virtual lab to to do virtual science.

    • I also like basketball (the one you play yourself, not the one you watch from the sofa), but given the sorry state of my legs, I prefer to run. And talk, I guess I am a social runner.

    • Given that our younger child is autistic, we also devote some time to autism. You can find here the link to the association we recently put together (only in spanish).

    • Star Trek, specially the Next Generation series (have you heard the term trekkie?, well...trekkies). Given that the latest Star Trek sucks, we have been wandering to Babylon 5, Battlestar Galactica, Firefly and others. Even Doctor Who. And Futurama, of course.

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