Meet Javier Gainza, postdoctoral researcher at Energy Conversion, Harvesting and Storage Group

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Javier Gainza Martín is already a familiar face at the ICMM. He completed his PhD here -for which he received a Margarita Salas and a CSIC awards-, and went on to do a postdoctoral research, before moving on to other projects. Now, he is returning to the ICMM as a postdoc, although, in fact, he has been based in the United States since September after being awarded a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Global Fellowship.

He will be spending two years at the University of Texas at Austin, in Jianshi Zhou’s group. After that, he says, "I will return to the ICMM, to J.A. Alonso’s group (Energy Conversion, Harvesting and Storage Group), to bring back all the experience I have gained, which is as well one of the objectives of this fellowship".

Where do you come from?
I am actually from Madrid and I did my PhD on thermoelectric materials here at the ICMM, in the group of J.A. Alonso. However, for the past two and a half years I have been working as a postdoctoral researcher on the ID22 beamline (the high-resolution poder diffraction beamline) at the ESRF (European Synchrotron), under the supervision of Dr. A. Fitch.

What have you worked on so far?
I did my PhD in thermoelectric materials, although towards the end of that period I also developed an interest in other types of compounds, such as rare-earth nickelates. In recent years, I have specialised even further in the field of powder diffraction, focusing also on transition metal oxides.

What will you work on? With whom?
My project focuses on palladium oxides, with the aim of finding out whether or not these compounds exhibit superconductivity. A few years ago, superconductivity was discovered in nickelates for the first time, so we are trying to see whether something similar is possible in these systems, which are, to a certain extent, analogous.
Prof. Zhou (physicist) and Prof. J.A. Alonso (chemist) are true experts in their respective fields. By combining my experience with theirs, I believe I can learn a lot in the process and achieve promising results for a project of this scale.

Why ICMM?
It is a centre that I know first-hand is a reference in several areas, and I know it has everything I need to make a project like this a success. I have good memories of my previous years at the ICMM, so I am sure I will settle in well and be able to get everything off to a good start right from the first day.

And a personal touch: any hobbies?
In my spare time, I enjoy reading fantasy books and playing role-playing or strategy videogames. I also like going on hikes in the mountains, although it’s true that I don’t do it as often as I would like.

What would you like to contribute to the institute?
I am confident we will achieve good results that will keep the ICMM at the forefront of materials science research in our country. Apart from that, I want to do my bit to ensure we continue to enjoy the great working atmosphere we have at the institute.