The INMA researcher Fernando Luis Vitalla joins the Real Academia de Ciencias Exactas, Físicas, Químicas y Naturales de Zaragoza
Fernando Luis Vitalla, CSIC researcher at the Aragon Nanoscience and Materials Institute, INMA, a joint centre of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) and the University of Zaragoza, has delivered his acceptance speech at the Real Academia de Ciencias Exactas, Físicas, Químicas y Naturales de Zaragoza, entitled ‘The second quantum revolution’, which was answered by Juan Bartolomé Sanjoaquín, ad honorem research professor at the CSIC.
Fernando Luis’ career has focused on the study of quantum phenomena that magnetic nanomaterials show near absolute zero and their applications to the field of quantum technologies. He is the author of more than 140 scientific articles, many of them in prestigious journals such as Nature Materials, Nature Physics, Nature Chemistry, Nature Communications or Physical Review Letters, which accumulate more than 8,600 citations.
At INMA, Luis Vitalla leads the activity on quantum computing, focused on the development of a novel quantum processor based on magnetic molecules and superconducting circuits. This line of research has been funded by a a project of the QUANTERA call part of the European “Flagship” initiative in quantum technologies, and by a FET-OPEN project, FALTMOLS, both coordinated by him and involving numerous top-level European academic institutions, as well as IBM and Keysight. He also coordinates the hardware line of the quantum technologies platform of the CSIC and the area of Physics and its Applications of the State Research Agency.
In 2010 he received the Zaragoza Academy of Sciences award for his work on the tunnel effect in magnetism and this year he has been appointed academician of the same institution. In addition to his research work, he has participated in numerous initiatives to disseminate science at all levels and in 2017 he received the RSEF-BBVA award for the best dissemination article for his work entitled ‘Quantum computation with magnetic molecules’.
Luis Vitalla, whose speech was “magnificent”, according to those present, received medal number 39, which belonged to Victor Orera Clemente. He was a CSIC research professor at INMA in the Research Group on Processing and Characterisation of Structural and Functional Ceramics, vice-president of the CSIC (2005-2006) and institutional coordinator of the CSIC in Aragon (2011-2015).
The Real Academia de Ciencias Exactas, Físicas, Químicas y Naturales de Zaragoza is an academy of Aragonese scope dedicated to foster and promote the study and research in mathematics, physics, chemistry, and natural sciences, and to the promotion of activities that bring Aragonese society closer to the world of Science. The usual activities of the Academy are the speeches and conferences of its members, as well as those of invited experts, the promotion and support for the holding of national and international congresses, but above all the support for research through the Research Prizes awarded annually and the Academy’s publications. Among its full members have been important figures of Aragonese and national knowledge, such as Zoel García de Galdeano, Pedro Ramón y Cajal, Antonio de Gregorio Rocasolano, Manuel Martínez-Risco, Pedro Ayerbe Allué, Juan Bastero Lerga, Longinos Navás Ferrer, Antonio Lasierra Purroy, Manuel Lorenzo Pardo, Justiniano Casas Peláez and Luis Oro Giral, among others.
31/01/2023
