Time flies. Nearly 20 years have passed since Javier Mendez, Pedro de Andrés, Paqui López and myself decided to apply jointly to the national plan projects and to share all resources and instrumentation, setting the bases of our research group. In this period, our lab consisted of an inherited UHV machine with a RT STM and a LEED IV set-up. We were aware that we had a poor equipment and that the only way to be scientifically competitive was to be enthusiastically different.
This has been the “leitmotiv” of the group that we called ESISNA (structure of nanoscopic systems) and now, 20 years later, the group has significantly increased. A new generation has taken the relay, and at ESISNA we continue doing unconventional science, using surface science methodologies to address problems in different areas of knowledge.
Here, in the picture, we see a bunch of devoted young scientists, most of the components of the ESISNA group, celebrating our annual Christmas dinner by the end of January. Scientists and students at ESISNA have different backgrounds and skills (organic and analytical chemists, theory, polymer science, space technology, astro-chemistry on surfaces, material science, synchrotron radiation, vacuum engineering, 2D-materials, biomolecules, chemistry on surfaces, nanoparticles, light from nanostructures, …) and after all the difficulties (many), they keep trying to make the best unconventional science.
I wish you a fruitful new year, with the greatest scientific success!!!!
José Angel Martín Gago, head of the ESISNA group
Unconventional members of the ESISNA group in our unconventional Christmas dinner by the end of January (taken at Honky-Tonk Bar)