Miguel José Yacamán

Miguel José Yacamán (born in 1946 in Córdoba, Veracruz) is a Mexican physicist who has made many contributions to the field of nanotechnology. He earned his Ph.D in physics in 1972 from the National Autonomous University of Mexico, where he was later director of the Institute of Physics from 1983-1991. He is currently a professor at the University of Texas at Austin.

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Research

Dr. Yacaman has done research on the structure and properties of nanoparticles, including metals, semiconductors and magnetic materials. He has also worked on synthesis and characterization of new materials (most of them nanoparticles), surfaces and interfaces, defects in solids, electron diffraction and imagining theory, quasicrystals, archaeological materials, catalysis and physics and chemistry of asphaltenes.

Dr. Yacaman is the author of 9 books and over 400 technical papers on the field, with more than 5000 citations.His work in nanoparticles open a new era in Electron Microscopy of finite size He has acted an associate editor of Acta and Scripta Metallurgica, Catalysis Letters, Journal of Nanostructured Materials, Microscopy Research and Techniques and Materials Chemistry, among others.

Additionally, in June of 2005,working with Jose Luis Elechiguerra (Fulbright Fellow) published for the first time ever, in a groundbreaking report, the inhibitory properties of silver nanoparticles against HIV-1. (Journal of Nanobiotechnology)

Honors and distinctions

Dr. Yacaman has held the Guggenheim Fellowship, and was awarded numerous prizes such as the National Prize of Sciences of Mexico, and the Prize of the National Academy of Mexico in Exact Sciences. He is a member of the Mexican National Research System (level III), and in May 2003 he was appointed National Researcher of Excellence by CONACyT.

Yacaman has made also many contributions to the Mexican science as science director of Conacyt during the nineties stablish many new programs that change the Mexican science.