His research has mainly focused on (i) the theoretical and computational modeling of photoexcitation and photoionization processes in atomic and molecular systems induced by synchrotron radiation and ultrashort laser pulses with femto- and attosecond duration, and (ii) the study and theoretical prediction of properties of materials and nano-objects of complex molecular systems, aggregates and fullerenes, isolated or deposited on metallic and nonmetallic surfaces. This, in close collaboration with prestigious Spanish and international experimental groups.
He has published more than 400 articles in international journals, among them several in the journals Science (4) Nature (2), Nature Chemistry (2), Nature Physics (1), Nature Photonics (1), Nature Communications (2), Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (3), Physical Review Letters (31), Angewandte Chemie (2), Journal of the American Chemical Society (3), ACS Nano (1), Small (1), and Nano Letters (1) as well as several reviews and book chapters. In 2000, he was awarded the National Research Prize Rey Juan Carlos I, in 2010, the prize of the Spanish Royal Society of Chemistry in Chemical Physics, in 2011, the Advanced Grant from the European Research Council XCHEM, and in 2017 the National Research Prize Rey Jaime I in Basic Research.
He has been Chair of the European network "Chemistry with ultrashort pulses and free electron lasers", which gathered around 100 scientists from 16 European countries. He has been a member of Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics Division of the European Physical Society and advisor of numerous national and international scientific societies, such as the National Science Foundation (USA), the European Science Foundation (European Union), the European Research Council (European Union), the Agencia Nacional de Evaluación y Prospectiva (Spain), the Swedish Research Council (Sweden), the Norwegian Research Council (Norway), the Agence pour l’Evaluation de la Recherche (France), the Swiss National Science Foundation (Switzerland), the Japan Society for Promotion of Science (Japan), etc.
He has been the principal investigator of more than 20 grants, both national and European, worth of approximately 4.5 M€, and participated in several national and European networks. He has supervised 17 doctoral theses, 14 master theses and is currently supervising 9 PhD students. Finally, he has been the chair of 12 international conferences, notably the two most prestigious ones in the area of Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics, namely the 10th European Conference on Atoms, Molecules and Photons held in Salamanca in 2010, which gathered 700 participants, and the 29th International Conference on Photonic, Electronic and Atomic Collisions held in Toledo in 2015, which gathered around 800 participants. He is currently Chair of the “Cátedra UAM-Fujitsu” on Scientific Computing and Big Data.