Instituto de Ciencia de Materiales de Madrid, CSIC, Spain
r.garcia[at]csic.es
ORCID
Research activity
Garcia combines experiments, theory and simulations to develop advanced force microscopes for the characterization of materials (semiconductors, polymers, biomolecules, cells) in their native environments (air or liquid). He has made major contributions to the development of dynamic AFM, in particular, to the most popular AFM mode (tapping mode AFM). His studies on the microcantilever dynamics in AFM have enabled the imaging of soft materials and solid-liquid interfaces with atomic or molecular scale resolutions. RG has pioneered the field of multifrequency AFM and founded the multifrequency conference series. He is the inventor of bimodal AFM, which is the fastest method for material property characterization at the nanoscale. He has also contributed to the development and applications of scanning probe lithography. Currently, RG pioneers the development 3D AFM to characterize solid-liquid interfaces. Some of his inventions are commercialized and applied in technological environments and factories.
Awards and Honors
- 2022 Best scientific career (Premio Miguel Catalán), Madrid Regional Government
- 2019 Beller lectureship, American Physical Society
- 2016 Nanotechnology Recognition Award, American Vacuum Society
- 2013 Awarded an ERC Advanced grant
- 2010 Technological Innovation Prize (1st), Fundación Madri+d, Madrid Regional Government
- 2007 Fellow American Physical Society (Material Physics), American Physical Society.
- 1990 Best PhD Thesis in Physics (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain).
Metrics
RG is author or co-author of 201 publications in international peer review journals, and 16 book chapters; his h-index is of 64 (Scopus). RG is the author of a book entitled Amplitude modulation AFM, Wiley-VCH (2010). He is the co-inventor of 13 patents on nanotechnology instruments and methods. Some of them are commercialized. He has directed/supervised 25 PhD Thesis.
Ranking
RG is a top 0.1 % scientist according to the most comprehensive, rigorous and recent study on scientific impact (J.P.A. Ioannidis, 2022). RG rank is 208 among the total 380123 scientists whose main field is ‘Applied Physics’. RG rank is 9252 among the total ~10 M scientists (all disciplines).
