Aires Ferreira
Professor

Profile

Career

Licentiate Degree, PhD (Porto), ‘Auditeur’ (École Polytechnique, France)

• 2014 October University of York, UK, Royal Society URF
• 2011–2014 Graphene Research Centre, NUS, Singapore, Research Fellow
• 2010-2011 U Minho, Portugal, Science & Technology Foundation Post-Doctoral Scholar
• 2004 Oct – 2009 U Vienna, Austria, and U Porto, Portugal, PhD on “The Quantum-Classical Boundary: from Opto-Mechanics to Solid-State” (awarded by U Porto on September 2009)
• 2004 École Polytechnique, France, Majeure de Physique 2 (awarded ‘Very Honorable with Praise’)
• 2000 – 2004 U Porto, Portugal, Licentiate Degree in Physics

Research

Overview

Research Group: Condensed Matter Physics

Summary of Expertise:

• Condensed Matter Physics Theory
• Quantum Optics Theory

Our research group investigates a broad range of topics in theoretical condensed matter physics from spintronics to quantum criticality; currently, our focus is on Dirac materials displaying strong spin-orbital effects.

Our interests lie mostly in the fundamental aspects that distinguish Dirac fermions from conventional charge carriers. We aim to uncover the microscopic mechanisms underlying relativistic spin-orbit transport phenomena in Dirac systems, endowed with real spin and pseudo-sin spin degrees of freedom. To this end, we develop self-consistent diagrammatic techniques and a unique real-space Green’s function methodology scalable up to billions of atoms for the first time (Ferreira & Mucciolo, Phys. Rev. Lett. 115, 106601, 2015).

We collaborate with laboratories based in the UK and abroad in the modelling and designing of experiments. The Royal Society in London, and the EPSRC fund our research activities.