Expertise
His main expertise regards surface and interface science, photoelectron spectroscopies, X-ray absorption, photoelectron spectro-microscopy, scanning tunneling microscopy, X-ray and electron diffraction, coincidence spectroscopy. His actual areas of interest are surface reactivity and catalysis, ferroelectric and ferromagnetic materials, 2D systems, being one of the leaders worldwide in studying molecular adsorption/desorption and surface chemical reactions on atomically clean ferroelectric surfaces and hysteretic transport properties in graphene channels with ferroelectric gates, correlated with surface science analysis. He extended the use of photoelectron spectroscopy to characterize band bending at surfaces and interfaces and surfaces of ferroelectric materials.
His team demonstrated the use of photoelectron spectro-microscopy with contrast in binding energy to characterize non-invasively ferroelectric domains and also the ability of the low energy electron diffraction (LEED) technique to derive the outer surface potential and to quantify dead layers at the surface of a ferroelectric single crystal film. They have put recently in evidence spin asymmetry in atomically clean Pt(001) and SrTiO3(001). They demonstrated ferroelectric-enabled adsorption of weakly polar or nonpolar molecules on BaTiO3(001).
Teodorescu’s own theoretical work was recently concentrated on a new theory for surface-enhanced Raman scattering, the elaboration of a new model for band ferromagnetism, the setup of a microscopic model for ferroelectricity, and on the theory of one- and two-dimensional landscapes of ferroic domains.
He teaches at the University of Bucharest lessons on surface science, molecular beam epitaxy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy at Masters degree and at the Doctoral School of Physics, and has lead 8 PhD students to date. He is also actually the President of the Scientific Council of the National Institute of Materials Physics.
During the last two decades, he was leader of R&D projects of about 7.5 M€ (2004–2019) and of an infrastructure project (2018–2020) of about 11 M€.
Honors & Awards
Third prize, International Physics Olympiad, Sigtuna, Sweden, 1984.
“Radu Grigorovici” Prize of the Romanian Academy, awarded in 2015 for results obtained in 2013.