Dr. Martin Lopez Garcia leads the Natural and Artificial Photonic Structures and Devices Research Group at INL. Martin’s main interests lie in the study of light-matter interactions in natural nanostructures and the development of biomimetic strategies for photonic applications. He is particularly interested in bioinspiration for energy harvesting.

Martin received his degree in Physics (with a specialization in Optoelectronics) by the University of Santiago de Compostela. Later he obtained a PhD for his work on self-assembled hybrid photonic-plasmonic crystals in the Material Science Institute of Madrid (ICMM-CSIC). In 2012 he joined the Photonics Group of the University of Bristol where he participated in the development of photonic devices for quantum technologies and the study of the biophysical properties of natural photonic structures in plants and algae. He joined INL in 2017 to fund the NAPS Research Group where he combines material science, biotechnology and advanced optical characterization for the development of cost-effective and sustainable photonic materials and devices.

• M.A. Castillo, W.P. Wardley, and Martin Lopez-Garcia.
  Light dependent morphological changes can tune light absorption in iridescent plant chloroplasts
  bioRxiv, 2020.09.01.27761 (to appear in in ACS Photonics),(2021)

• J. W. Goessling, W. P. Wardley, M. Lopez-Garcia
  Highly Reproducible, Bio-Based Slab Photonic Crystals Grown by Diatoms
  Advanced Science,1903726, (2020)

• M. Lopez-Garcia, N. Masters, H.E. O’Brien, J.Lennon, G. Atkinson, M.J. Cryan, R. Oulton, H.M. Whitney
  Light induced dynamic structural color by intracellular 3D photonic crystals in brown algae
  Science advances ,4-4, pp. eaan8917, (2018)

• L. Chen, M. Lopez-Garcia, M. PC Taverne, X. Zheng, Y-L. D. Ho, J. G. Rarity
  Direct wide-angle measurement of a photonic band structure in a three-dimensional photonic crystal using infrared Fourier imaging spectroscopy
  Optics Letters 42, 1584-1587 (2017)

• M. Jacobs, M. Lopez-Garcia, O-P. Phrathep, T.Lawson, R. Oulton, H. Whitney
  Photonic multilayer structure of Begonia chloroplasts enhances photosynthetic efficiency
  Nature Plants, 2, 16162 (2016)