Dr. Asunción Fernández, our researcher at the Institute of Materials Science in Seville (a joint centre of the CSIC and the US), has been awarded the Medal of Seville for her teaching, education and research work.

Professor Asunción has a PhD in Chemistry and a degree in Physics. In 1983 she began her postdoc at the University of Seville and in 1987 she joined the ICMS as a scientific collaborator, where ten years later she became a researcher and later, in 2002, she became a Research Professor at the CSIC. She has led the “Nanostructured Materials and Microstructure-NanoMatMicro” Research Group since 1991 and has been the principal investigator of the ICMS electron microscopy laboratory since 1996. Asunción was director of the institute itself for 8 years. Among many other international awards, in 2014 she received the “Academic Guest” award at the EMPA laboratories in Switzerland.

Her research has been mainly focused on the physical-chemical study of nanomaterials, especially in the synthesis of nanoparticles and nanostructured thin films, as well as applying microstructural characterization techniques for the study of materials on a nanometric scale. In particular, our researcher has worked in the fields of semiconductor photocatalysis, surface chemistry, hydrogen storage and magnetron sputtering deposition of films and coatings.

Currently, Asunción Fernández is researching the innovative fabrication of nanostructured thin films by sputtering deposition assisted by plasmas of helium and other light gases. The fabrication of gas-solid nanocomposite films and their applications in the study of nuclear reactions, a field in which she is a pioneer.