"Stories in the flatland (with a twist in the end)" symposium in honour of Prof. Francisco Guinea

22^nd and 23^rd of June 2023

"Stories in the flatland (with a twist in the end)" is a symposium in honour of Prof. Francisco Guinea

Since the isolation of a single layer of carbon atoms (graphene) about two decades ago, the field of two-dimensional materials has only grown in systems and phenomena. Fundamental questions related to their structural and mechanical properties remain open and, simultaneously, the quantum mechanical behavior of electrons in these flatlands never ceases to surprise us. The most recent surprise: The discovery of superconductivity together with other indications of strong electronic correlations when two graphene layers are misaligned about 1 degree.

Francisco Guinea (Paco for friends and colleagues) has been at the theoretical forefront of this field even before the field was recognized as such. With this conference we want to celebrate Paco’s many scientific contributions and his mentorship and his friendship through the years.

Invited speakers

• Eva Andrei (Rutgers University).
• Elena Bascones (Instituto de Ciencia de Materiales de Madrid -CSIC).
• Jose M. Pereira Carmelo (University of Minho).
• Antonio H. Castro Neto (National University of Singapore).
• José González Carmona (Instituto de Estructura de la Materia -CSIC).
• Irina Grigorieva (University of Manchester).
• Mikhail Katsnelson (Radboud University).
• Pilar López-Sancho (Instituto de Ciencia de Materiales de Madrid -CSIC).
• Luis Martin-Moreno (Instituto de Nanociencia y Materiales de Aragón -CSIC).
• Maria Angeles H. Vozmediano (Instituto de Ciencia de Materiales de Madrid -CSIC).
• Niels Walet (University of Manchester).
• Jorge E. Hirsch (University of California San Diego).
• Pablo San-Jose (Instituto de Ciencias de Materiales de Madrid - CSIC).
• Alejandro Jimeno Pozo (IMDEA Nanociencia).
• Daniel Arovas (University of California San Diego). 
• Bruno Amorim (Universidade do Minho).

PacoFest will take place on June 22^nd and 23nd 2023 at the Conference Room of IMDEA Nanociencia and online (Zoom).

Link to Zoom: https://nanoscience-imdea.zoom.us/s/98907064340

Postal address: C/ Faraday, 9
Campus de Cantoblanco
28049 Madrid
Spain

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Should you require a assistance certificate, please, register here or contact us by email.

 How to arrive to IMDEA Nanociencia: 

From Madrid (city centre)

- By train (Cercanías)

Line C4 (Alcobendas-San Sebastián de Los Reyes/Colmenar Viejo), stop at “Cantoblanco Universidad” + 15 min. walk.

- By bus

Only from “Plaza de Castilla” bus station. Line 714, stop at “Newton-Fco. Tomás y Valiente” + 3 min. walk.
“Plaza de Castilla” is connected to metro lines 1, 9 and 10.

 From the airport Adolfo-Suárez/Barajas

- By train (Cercanías)

Line C1 till “Chamartin” station and change to line C4 (Alcobendas-San Sebastián de Los Reyes/Colmenar Viejo), stop at “Cantoblanco Universidad” + 15 min. walk.

- By bus

Only from Terminal 4. Line 827, stop at “Newton-Fco. Tomás y Valiente” + 3 min. walk. There is a free shuttle bus that connects all terminals of the airport. 

 By taxi

• Taxi call centre: +34 91 547 8200, +34 91 371 2131.
• From the airport a flat fare of 30€ applies.

Organising committee

Dr. Jose Ángel Silva (IMDEA Nanociencia).
Dr. Héctor Ochoa (Columbia University).
Dr. Pierre A. Pantaleón (IMDEA Nanociencia).
Prof. Rodolfo Miranda (IMDEA Nanociencia, director). 

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 Paco studied physics in Complutense de Madrid during the last years of Franco’s dictatorship. We all assume that those were very interesting years. Our sources indicate that Paco in his youth was already the Paco that we all know and admire. He moved to Autónoma de Madrid for his Ph. D. From 82’ to 84’ Paco was a Fullbright Scholar at the Institute for Theoretical Physics of the University of California, Santa Barbara. Back in Spain he was first an assistant professor at Autónoma, and later he worked at CSIC from 87’ to 2014, and since then at IMDEA Nanociencia with prolonged rainy stays at the University of Manchester first, and nowadays at the Donostia International Physics Center in San Sebastián.

Paco has made contributions in many problems of condensed matter and statistical physics, including mesoscopic systems and quantum dissipation, material science with emphasis on strongly correlated phenomena, non-equilibrium pattern formation, magnetism, and superconductor and semiconductor physics. Many of Paco’s articles deal with problems at the interface between these areas and show how concepts developed in a given subfield can be successfully applied to other problems.

Paco talking about quantum dissipation, one of his favorite topics (March 2005).

One of these multidisciplinary areas of research is the study of the properties of two-dimensional materials. Paco is probably best known for his theoretical contributions in this field, which started with the study of low-dimensional allotropes of carbon. Along with his long-standing collaborators M. A. H. Vozmediano and J. González, they were pioneers in the application of the Dirac equation to describe the electronic spectrum of fullerene molecules. Soon after they wrote their seminal works about the long-range Coulomb interaction in graphene, predicting the famous logarithmic renormalization of the Fermi velocity which was later experimentally corroborated. This was all before graphene stacks were exfoliated down to the single-layer limit. Since the discovery of graphene in 2004 Paco has written many influential works on the properties of graphene and other two-dimensional materials with many collaborators around the globe.

Paco with friends and colleagues in occasion of Rafael Roldán’s thesis defense (September 2007).

These days his students and postdocs are trying to catch up with Paco’s ideas about the superconductivity observed in twisted graphene devices. For all of us who are lucky enough to work with him, there is nothing more inspiring than arriving to the office early in the morning and seeing Paco bent over his laptop running one of his Mathematica codes. Happy birthday Paco!

Group photo in 2014 with many of his former students and postdocs.

Group photo in 2023 at IMDEA Nanociencia.