Pablo Jarillo-Herrero

Pablo Jarillo-Herrero Pablo Jarillo-Herrero is a Spanish-born experimental physicist noted for pioneering work on twistronics and moiré heterostructures in two-dimensional materials. He leads a research group at Massachusetts Institute of Technology that has produced influential results on superconductivity, correlated insulating states, and topology in graphene-based systems. His work connects advances made at institutions such as ICFO, Instituto de Ciencia de Materiales de Madrid, University of Cambridge, and collaborations with researchers from Harvard University, Stanford University, and Columbia University.

Early life and education

Born in Valladolid, Jarillo-Herrero completed undergraduate studies at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid before pursuing graduate work at the University of Cambridge and the University of Groningen under advisers including Herre van der Zant. During his doctoral and postdoctoral training he worked on electronic transport in nanoscale systems and mesoscopic devices at laboratories connected to Cavendish Laboratory, AMOLF, and research centers collaborating with Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research and Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich. His early mentors and colleagues included researchers associated with CNRS, CERN-related condensed matter initiatives, and groups led by figures such as Philip Kim, Andre Geim, and Konstantin Novoselov.

Academic and research career

Jarillo-Herrero joined the faculty of Massachusetts Institute of Technology after research appointments and visiting positions at European centers like ICFO and institutes tied to Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas. At MIT he established a laboratory that interfaces with facilities at Lincoln Laboratory, MIT.nano, and collaborative centers including Broad Institute and MIT Department of Physics. His group has partnered with theorists from Princeton University, University of California, Berkeley, University of California, Santa Barbara, University of Texas at Austin, and experimentalists at National Institute of Standards and Technology to explore correlated electron phenomena. He has supervised doctoral students and postdocs who later joined faculties at Yale University, University of Cambridge, ETH Zurich, Tsinghua University, and Seoul National University.

Major discoveries and contributions

Jarillo-Herrero is best known for demonstrating superconductivity and correlated insulating behavior in twisted bilayer graphene at the so-called "magic angle," a discovery that launched the field of twistronics and influenced work across Condensed matter physics communities connected to groups at Columbia University, Harvard University, Stanford University, and University of California, Berkeley. He advanced the fabrication techniques for van der Waals heterostructures used by teams at Nanyang Technological University, National University of Singapore, and University of Manchester. His experiments revealed topological phases and flat-band physics relevant to research at Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems, Institute for Advanced Study, and Perimeter Institute. Collaborations with theorists from Institute for Quantum Information and Matter and Kavli Institute yielded models linking moiré superlattices to fractional quantum Hall states, Chern insulators, and unconventional pairing mechanisms explored by groups at Rutgers University, University of Chicago, University of California, Irvine, and University of Washington.

Awards and honors

Jarillo-Herrero's recognition includes prestigious prizes and memberships such as the American Physical Society's Oliver E. Buckley Condensed Matter Prize, the Wolf Prize in Physics, and the Dirac Medal. He has been elected to organizations like the National Academy of Sciences and has received fellowships from foundations associated with European Research Council, Guggenheim Foundation, and John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. His honors connect him to lists of laureates alongside recipients from Nobel Prize in Physics, Wolf Foundation, and Breakthrough Prize networks; he has delivered named lectures at venues including Royal Society, Fermilab, Cornell University, and Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Selected publications and patents

Jarillo-Herrero's landmark publications appear in journals and proceedings linked to Nature, Science, Physical Review Letters, Nature Physics, and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Key collaborative papers involve coauthors from MIT, Harvard University, Stanford University, Columbia University, and University of Cambridge and address superconductivity in twisted bilayer graphene, correlated insulators, and moiré engineering. His group holds patents in techniques for van der Waals assembly, device fabrication, and measurement methods used in collaborations with industrial partners such as IBM Research, Intel Corporation, Samsung Electronics, TSMC, and NVIDIA. Selected representative works include early demonstrations of magic-angle phenomena, studies of topological moiré bands, and experimental probes of electron interactions building on theoretical frameworks from Bardeen Cooper Schrieffer theory adaptations and many-body models developed at institutions like Princeton, Harvard, and UC Berkeley.

Category:Spanish physicists Category:Condensed matter physicists Category:Massachusetts Institute of Technology faculty