Dr. Neculai Plugaru,
National Institute for R&D in Microtechnologies - IMT Bucharest, Romania
Dr. Neculai Plugaru received his Ph.D. in 1995 from Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj, Romania for studies on the magnetic structure - crystal structure relationship in 4f-3d electron systems. Using macroscopic characterization techniques, Fe-57 Mössbauer spectroscopy, neutron diffraction, as well as XMCD and XAS synchrotron techniques, Plugaru brought contributions to the description of magnetic phenomena in complex 4f-3d electron systems, such as: i) Competing exchange mechanisms; ii) Effects of exchange and magnetocrystalline anisotropy on magnetic structures and magnetic phase diagrams; iii) Effects of chemical, substitutional and/or lattice disorder on the electronic charge and spin densities; iv) Local spin and orbital moments, effect of orbital hybridizations on exchange coupling. Between 09.1999 - 09.2010 he was a Visiting Research Fellow and Professor at the Institute of Materials Science of Aragón (I.C.M.A), and University of Zaragoza, Spain. Since 2000, Plugaru\'s research activity has been in the field of modeling and simulation of electronic materials and devices using DFT methods, theory and experimental data. At present, his main research directions are: (1) Design and engineering of functional ferroelectric interfaces for ferroelectric tunnel junctions; (2) Effects of defects and dopants in Semiconductor / Ferroelectric / Metal heterostructures; (3) Photoferroic heterostructures based on oxide, halide or hybrid perovskites for high conversion efficiency solar cells. Plugaru has authored more than 74 articles indexed in Web of Science Core Collection. He received the Constantin Miculescu Award for Physics, of the Romanian Academy of Sciences, in 1990, for a group of articles on magnetic phenomena in complex intermetallic borides.