Manuel V. Sulleiro

I am a chemist working on the surface chemistry of two-dimensional materials and on materials built from designed peptides.

CICA, Universidade da Coruña

Graphene over MoS₂. A schematic drawing.

Research interests

Chemistry on 2D materials

I like making chemistry work on surfaces that would rather not react. Much of my work has been on the covalent functionalisation of graphene, carbon nanotubes and MoS₂, trying to add new functions without losing the properties that make these materials worth using.
Heterostructures and devices

Different 2D materials stacked together can do things neither does alone. I am interested in holding those stacks together through chemistry, and in what that means once they become part of electronic or sensing devices.
Peptides as building blocks

Designed peptides fold and pair in predictable ways. I use them to build fibres and three-dimensional scaffolds for biological applications.
Luminescent nanocarbons and sensing

Carbon dots and graphene quantum dots, where their emission comes from and how to put it to work in bioimaging. 2D materials also show up here, as platforms for electrochemical biosensors.

Nature Chemistry
Fabrication of devices featuring covalently linked MoS₂–graphene heterostructures
We stitched two different 2D materials, MoS₂ and graphene, together through a single molecule and built the junction straight into transistors. The molecule turned out to set how the two layers talk to each other, which makes the interface something chemistry can design.

Illustration: Patricia Bondía
Chemical Communications
Microwave-induced covalent functionalization of few-layer graphene with arynes under solvent-free conditions
An unconventional way to do chemistry on graphene. Graphene soaks up microwaves and heats itself in seconds, so it drives its own reaction with arynes with no solvent at all. It made the front cover of the issue.
Sensing and Bio-Sensing Research
2D materials towards sensing technology: from fundamentals to applications
Our view of where 2D materials stand in sensing, from how each material turns a chemical event into a signal to the devices that put it to use.

Santiago de Compostela

Degree and master's in chemistry at the Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, with a first taste of organic synthesis at CIQUS and research stays in Kraków and Manchester.
Trieste

PhD with Maurizio Prato on new routes to the covalent modification of graphene and carbon nanotubes, including a stay at CIC biomaGUNE. The thesis received the university's best thesis award in physical sciences and engineering.
Gwangju

Graphene devices at the Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology, South Korea.
Madrid

Postdoctoral researcher at IMDEA Nanociencia with Emilio M. Pérez, working on the chemistry of low-dimensional materials.
Braga

International Iberian Nanotechnology Laboratory, with Pedro Alpuim, on graphene devices for biosensing.
A Coruña

CICA, Universidade da Coruña, in Elena Pazos's QUIMBIO group, working on peptide-based materials.

Students looking for a final-year, master's or doctoral project are welcome to write to me.