João Amaral obtained his PhD in Physics at the University of Aveiro in December 2009, and has dedicated most of his scientific career to the study of magnetism and magnetic materials. His main focus of research during MSc. and PhD. was on magnetocaloric materials for magnetic refrigeration applications. Recent research interests include rare-earth free permanent magnets, by optimizing their composition and production through nanostructuring techniques, in a combined effort with the use of theoretical tools such as Density Functional Theory and Ising/Heisenberg models.

He is currently an Assistant Researcher (Investigador FCT 2015 programme) at CICECO and Physics Dept. at the University of Aveiro, and IFIMUP-IN (Institute of Nanotechnology) Porto, as well as an invited researcher at the EXSS group at Imperial College London. He has published 70 papers in ISI-indexed peer-reviewed international scientific journals and presented 25 oral presentations in international conferences and meetings (3 invited). He is currently the main supervisor of 3 PhD students and a MsC. student, in Physics and Physics Engineering courses at Universidade de Aveiro.

Principal Investigator of the FCT Exploratory Research Project "Exploring nano-fabrication methods of high coercivity rare-earth free Si-Alnico permanent magnets" (EXPL/CTM-NAN/1614/2013) [more info at the FCT web page]

Task leader of the FCT SR&TD Project of consolidation of research skills and resources "Facing the challenges of characterizing novel thermal materials and processes (Heat@UA)" (RECI/CTM-CER/0336/2012).

"Magnetovolume Effects in Heusler Compounds via First-Principles Calculations", J. N. Gonçalves, J. S. Amaral and V. S. Amaral, IEEE Trans. Magn. 50 1301104 (2014) [DOI].

"Thermodynamics of the 2D Ising model from a random path sampling method", J. S. Amaral, J. N. Gonçalves and V. S. Amaral, IEEE Trans. Magn. 50 1002204 (2014) [DOI].

"Disorder effects in giant magnetocaloric materials", J. S. Amaral and V. S. Amaral; Phys. Stat. Sol. A 211 971 (2014) [DOI].

"Strain induced enhanced ferromagnetic behavior in inhomogeneous low doped La0.95Sr0.05MnO3+delta", S. Das, J. S. Amaral, et al.; Appl. Phys. Lett. 102 112408 (2013) [DOI].

"On the Curie temperature dependency of the Magnetocaloric effect", J. H. Belo, J. S. Amaral, et al.; Appl. Phys. Lett. 100 242407 (2012) [DOI].

"Handling mixed-state magnetization data for magnetocaloric studies - a solution to achieve realistic entropy behaviour", S. Das, J. S. Amaral, V. S. Amaral; J. Phys. D Appl. Phys. 43 152002 (2010) [DOI].

"On estimating the magnetocaloric effect from magnetization measurements", J. S. Amaral, V. S. Amaral; J. Magn. Magn. Mat. 322 1552 (2009) [DOI].

"The effect of magnetic irreversibility on estimating the magnetocaloric effect from magnetization measurements", J. S. Amaral, V. S. Amaral; Appl. Phys. Lett. 94 042506 (2009) [DOI].

"The effect of chemical distribution on the magnetocaloric effect: A case study in second-order phase transition manganites", J. S. Amaral, P. B. Tavares, et al., Journal of Non-Crystalline Solids 354 (47-51), 5301-5303 (2008) [DOI].

"A mean-field scaling method for first- and second-order phase transition ferromagnets and its application in magnetocaloric studies", J. S. Amaral, N. J. O. Silva, V. S. Amaral; Appl. Phys. Lett. 91, 172503 (2007) [DOI].

"Magnetocaloric effect in Er and Eu-substituted ferromagnetic La-Sr Manganites", J. S. Amaral, M. S. Reis, et al.; J. Magn. Magn. Mat. 290 686 (2005) [DOI].