Miguel Moreno-Ugeda receives an ERC Consolidator Grant

The Ikerbasque Research Associate at Donostia International Physics Center (DIPC) Miguel Moreno-Ugeda has received an ERC Consolidator Grant amounting to nearly three million euros for his project mKoiré. The grant will allow state-of-the-art equipment to be acquired to study superconductivity in moiré-type materials based on graphene at temperatures close to absolute zero.

ERC Consolidator Grants are geared towards research personnel who are consolidating their own team or independent research program. Through these prestigious grants, the European Research Council (ERC) funds projects at the cutting edge of all areas of knowledge.

The mKoiré project aims to uncover the origin of superconductivity in moiré-type materials based on graphene. “These materials are nothing more than the stacking of several layers –two, three, four– of graphene and rotated at a very specific and precise angle, between one degree and two degrees, in which highly exotic electronic behaviors emerge. One that stands out is superconductivity, which is known to exist, but about which very little is known,” explains Miguel Moreno-Ugeda. In actual fact, “what this project aims to understand is the origin of the superconductivity from a microscopic point of view and the mechanisms that generate it. Through the use of a Scanning Tunneling Microscope (STM), it also has the potential to reveal forms of superconductivity never seen in nature. Moreover, this project will involve the use of a microscope that combines extreme conditions of temperature and vacuum, making it almost unique in the world,” adds Moreno-Ugeda.

According to Miguel Moreno-Ugeda, “this project gives DIPC the chance, right now, of becoming a unique European hub in the development of moiré-type quantum materials”. “So far most of the research has been done in the United States, with some exceptions in Europe, but certainly not from a microscopic point of view. DIPC will be the first in Europe to have this kind of technology,” adds the researcher. Furthermore, “over the next two decades, moiré materials technology will be central to the development of quantum materials and DIPC will have the opportunity to assume a leading role in Europe in this second quantum revolution that we are already witnessing”, says Miguel Moreno-Ugeda.

The director of DIPC, Ricardo Díez-Muiño, recall how difficult it is to secure an ERC Consolidator Grant: “It is an extremely competitive program that only supports projects of excellence at the frontiers of knowledge.” Díez-Muiño congratulates Miguel Moreno-Ugeda for the European Research Council`s recognition to the quality and ambition of his scientific project, and points out that “lines of research such as the one led by Moreno-Ugeda will have the full support of the center and the institutions that make up its Board of Trustees thanks, among other things, to the infrastructures that will be developed on the new premises that DIPC plans to build at its Ibaeta headquarters”.

ENHORABUENA MIGUEL!

Miguel MORENO-UGEDA focuses his research on the fundamental properties of two-dimensional quantum materials. Born in Madrid in 1979, he graduated in Physics at the Autonomous University of Madrid (UAM), where he also completed his PhD studies (2011). After his postdoctoral stage at the University of California (Berkeley), in 2017 he obtained a Starting Grant awarded by the European Research Council (ERC) to finance projects of excellence. This ERC StG project was developed by Miguel together with his group 2DSPM (www.2dspm.org), in collaboration with the Materials Physics Center (CFM, CSIC-UPV/EHU), where the experimental equipment is physically located.