Dr. R. Gago received his PhD in 2000 by Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (UAM) for his work on “Superhard Coatings within the Boron-Carbon-Nitrogen System” grown by Ion-Beam-Assisted Deposition and carried out at the Materials Science Institute of Madrid (ICMM) from the Spanish National Council of Research (CSIC). As post-doctoral fellow (2001-2004) he moved to the Institute of Ion Beam Physics and Materials Research from the Forschungszentrum Rossendorf (FZD) in Germany. Here, he developed the synthesis and characterization of nanostructured carbon-based coatings with fullerene-like arrangements. After that, he worked as “Ramon y Cajal Fellow” (2004-2008) at Centro de Micro-Análisis de Materiales (UAM), consolidating his background on ion-solid interactions for material processing and analysis. Since 2008, he is Tenured Scientist at ICMM-CSIC within the “Surface Engineering & Advanced Coatings Group” dealing with ion-sputter techniques for Surface Growth & Erosion as well as spectroscopic tools for chemical and structural characterization. The general objective is the development of advanced coatings (complex mixtures, nanostructuring, defect & interface engineering, multilayers,…) and self-organized surface nanopatterns for functional applications (optoelectronics, tribology, photocatalysis, electrochemistry, etc.). Up to now, he has co-authored around 140 publications in peer-reviewed SCI journals together with several topical reviews and book chapters.
