PHD: Montserrat Navarro Espino

Utrecht University
Project 1.1A in Pillar 1
Theory of topological insulators/superconductor interfaces
Project Leader: Zeila Zanolli
Co-supervisor: Cristiane de Morais Smith
Student of pillar 1
Short Biography
I was born and raised in Mexico City. I pursued my academic journey in the field of Chemistry at the Faculty of Chemistry at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). I completed both my BSc and MSc degrees there, with a focus on the study of the electronic structure of twisted bilayer graphene and its interaction with light, as well as electronic transport in bismuth, which has recently been classified as a higher-order topological insulator.
Currently, I am a Ph.D. candidate in the Condensed Matter Interfaces group at Utrecht University, under the supervision of dr. Zeila Zanolli and prof. Cristiane de Morais Smith. In my doctoral research, I plan to study the first principles of the proximity interaction between a topological insulator and a superconductor.
Publications in QuMat
| Formation and properties of the Bi (√3×√3 )R 30∘ wetting layer on Ge(111) Kevin Vonk, Ying Wang, Montserrat Navarro Espino, Andrés R. Botello Mendez, Zeila Zanolli, Harold J. W. Zandvliet Phys. Rev. B Accepted, (November 2025) Contributes to: Pillar 1, |