ARCNL welcomes new group leader Sonia Castellanos Ortega

On February 15th Sonia Castellanos Ortega starts at ARCNL as group leader of the EUV Photoresist Materials group.

Castellanos Ortega aims at understanding the mechanisms behind the effects that extreme UV light has on materials of a different nature. In addition to time-resolved spectroscopy, this research line involves synthesis of photoresists and the tuning of their photochemistry – as molecular entities and in condensed phase – through molecular design.

Sonia Castellanos Ortega received her PhD in Chemistry from the University of Barcelona in 2010. Her work, awarded with an Extraordinary Prize, was mainly focused on the design and preparation of organic radicals for their implementation in electronic devices. During her postdoctoral stage in HU Berlin she conceived novel photoswitchable organic molecules intended to attain efficient light-to-electron conversion in the frame of an Alexander von Humboldt fellowship. Soon after, she started as a postdoc at TU Delft where she worked on the development of photoresponsive metal-organic frameworks.