Since my access to the position of associate professor at the University of Girona (UdG) in 2000, the main research line has been thermal analysis (TA) of materials. Thanks to a number of national and European programs, I have been able to acquire the equipment for our laboratory specialized on thermal analysis. It is one of the best equipped for this particular activity in Spain, offering its services to the scientific community and companies. I have applied TA to study the structure of amorphous semiconductors in collaboration with LPICM (Ecole Polytechnique, Paris), CEA (Grenoble), FEMAM and GES (Applied Physics,UB). From this activity I would like to highlight a contribution where I state that the growth of Si3N4 nanowires is link to passive oxidation (APL 2005). My activity on TA of materials has led me to improve
kinetics methods to analyze solid phase transformation such as crystallization (Acta Mater 2006 133 citations, PRB 2007 40 citations). To be highlighted the review paper on the isoconversional analysis (JTAC 2011 99 citations) and general properties of thermally activated transformations (TCA 2014, JTAC 201). Additionally, I have developed new methodologies to determine the heat capacity and the thermal conductivity of materials. The application of these results together with complementary structural analysis resulted in several publications on material science and applied physics (APL 2010; PSS: RRL 2011). Also, I have analyzed the conditions for combustion to occur, its characterization by TA and its application to perovskites
synthesis (Comb & Flame 2017, AIChE 2017, Cer. Int 2017) in collaboration with Ehime University (Japan). Since, 2009 my main activity is focused in the synthesis of superconductors in collaboration with ICMAB, ENEA (Italy), Synchrotron SOLEIL (France), Synchrotron ALBA (Spain) and University Sfax (Tunisia). This activity is focused on understanding the processes leading from the precursor films (an organic salt) to the high-temperature YBCO superconductor: pyrolysis, Ba-carbonate and Ba-fluoride decomposition, crystallization and oxygenation. All these processes have been monitored by thermal analysis techniques, notably thermogravimetry (TG) and evolved gas analysis (EGA) by infra-red (IR) spectroscopy and mass-spectroscopy (MS). One relevant contributions were to state that films behave differently than powders and that in-situ TA of films provides valuable information about the actual
behavior of solid-gas transformations in films (JAAP 2020, JPCC 2013, TCA 2015). Thanks to the application of the in-situ TA analysis together with structural methods, we have been able to untangle the main reaction mechanism and its relationship with the structural properties of pyrolyzed films (three JAAP 2019, JAAP 2018, JTAC 2012, TCA 2012, TSF 2012, TCA 2011, JNR 2011, TCA 2012). The existence of a non-equilibrium liquid phase prior to YBCO crystallization was the key hypothesis leading to a new synthesis route to grow YBCO films. This transient liquid was finally detected by in-situ x-ray diffraction at the Soleil synchrotron facility in Paris (Nature Comm. 2020, JPPC 2020). The experiments also showed that YBCO growth from this liquid is much faster than from the conventional solid-state route, representing a breakthrough in the field. The technique is being transferred to several companies devoted to the production of superconductor tapes.