Professor Dr Ángel Rubio

Research Priorities: Ultrafast phenomena in molecular and condensed systems, time-dependent functional theory for quantum electrodynamics, characterizing new non-equilibrium states of matter.
Ángel Rubio is a Spanish physicist. He develops theoretical instruments that both aid in the study of electronical reactions of materials and molecules as well as in the prediction of non-equilibrium phases of matter. He is known for his highly impactful works and leadership in computational solid-state physics, predicting novel materials properties at the nanometer scale, and, more recently, new non-equilibrium phases of matter, opening the fields of cavity materials engineering and QED-polaritonic chemistry. He is considered a pioneer of computer-aided material science and is one of the founders of modern theoretical spectroscopy.
Ángel Rubio research focuses on the modelling and theory of the electronical and structural properties of condensed matter. He develops theoretical instruments that underpin the study of electronical reactions of materials and molecules as well as the prediction of non-equilibrium phases of matter. He is considered a pioneer of computer-aided material science and is one of the founders of modern theoretical spectroscopy. The instruments he developed make it possible to calculate the electronic excitation of materials and nanostructures. Rubio and his group are the originators and developers of the widely used ab initio computational materials research open-source project octopus www.tddft.org) that simulates the non-equilibrium dynamics of quantum matter under the influence of arbitrary time-dependent fields.
Rubio’s findings on computational solid-state physics embrace the modification of the molecular chemical landscape and reactivity by coupling molecules to quantum cavity vacuum fluctuations (polaritonic chemistry). He developed and established the theoretical framework for “Quantum-Electrodynamic Density Functional Theory (QEDFT)”. This theory is used to describe strong light-matter phenomena in chemistry and material science. It is a generalisation of time-dependent Density Functional Theory (DFT) that explicitly treats time-dependent interactions of protons and electrons. His theories provide novel insights on the changes of the molecular chemical landscape and its reactivity by coupling molecules to vacuum fluctuations in quantum cavities. This allows for the prediction and description of newly emerging material states.
Ángel Rubio also accomplished breakthrough work on composite nanotubes, new light-driven collective phenomena in solids, theoretical spectroscopy and its applications to quantum materials, Floquet and cavity materials engineering and moiré quantum simulators. He worked on the theory of the electronic structure of low-dimensional systems, molecular compounds, and clusters – most notably of carbon and boron-carbon-nitrogen nanostructures.