Alberto Ramil Rego is Professor of Mechanical Engineering in the Department of Naval and Industrial Engineering at the University of A Coruña. He has belonged to the Industrial Laser Applications Laboratory since its beginnings in 1992. His research work was devoted in the early years to high-power continuous lasers and later to pulsed nanosecond lasers and lately to femtosecond lasers. With power lasers, his work focused on the instrumentation and modeling of surface thermal processes for surface hardening and coating applications. Some of the modeling methods developed have been applied to thermal processes produced by systems other than lasers, such as the pin-on-disc wear measurement process. With short-pulse (nanosecond) lasers, his work focused on the instrumentation and optimization of laser ablation processes applied to the cleaning and analysis of surfaces using the LIPS technique.

Regarding the LIBS technique, he has carried out analysis and comparison of spectra using different innovative techniques in this field such as correlation analysis or the application of neural networks. In the field of rocks of heritage interest, he has worked for several years in collaboration with the University of Vigo in the cleaning of natural and anthropogenic crusts on granite. These studies have produced a large number of publications and have been funded by the National Research Program. In addition to laser processing, Dr. Ramil has worked on different non-destructive optical techniques. In collaboration with researchers from the Universidad Técnica Nacional, Escuela Regional de Paraná (Argentina), he has carried out work on applications of non-destructive analysis techniques based on lasers (interferometry, holographic, dynamic speckle,etc.) for the detection of defects on surfaces.

He has also carried out work on the analysis of images obtained with conventional and hyperspectral cameras, in order to identify and quantify the presence of different contaminants on rock surfaces. It should be noted that these techniques are performed without removing the sample from the laser processing system, so they can be used for evaluation and monitoring of the laser effect.

Dr. Ramil is the author of more than 90 publications in the SCOPUS database (18 h-index and 949 citations); he has directed 4 doctoral theses, has participated in 27 research projects (14 of the national plan) and has had a positive evaluation of 6 quarters (1988-2017) by the National Commission for the Evaluation of Research Activity (CNEAI). Dr. Ramil is part of the Red Tecnoheritage, within the group “Laser applied to heritage. University of A Coruña” (LAPA-UDC).