Thermomat — Thermophysical Properties of Materials Research Group, EHU

Snapshot

Why it matters internationally

Thermomat is important not only as a laboratory actor in infrared emissometry, but also as a builder of community infrastructure. It organized IR-EMPOWER as a workshop devoted specifically to infrared emissivity measurement techniques and protocols, and its environment has developed EKHI, a structured open database for optical and radiative properties (recent Scientific Data / Nature publication). Laboratories that both measure and curate data help transform a fragmented literature into a reusable scientific resource — which makes Thermomat especially relevant as a node of community formation, data stewardship, and methodological convergence.

Scope of activity

Relevant units

• Thermomat — Thermophysical Properties of Materials Research Group (EHU) — infrared emissometry, radiative-property characterization, and development of measurement instrumentation.
• EKHI — open database of optical and thermal radiative properties for solid materials — supports interactive querying and visualization of emittance, reflectance, transmittance, and absorptance records, with a FAIR-compliant data structure.

Radiative properties measured / curated

Emittance · reflectance · transmittance · absorptance · related thermo-optical and radiative quantities.

Capability envelope

• Methodology: in-house modular high-performance infrared emissometer presented at IR-EMPOWER; FAIR-compliant data structure and workflows; community-facing instrumentation development.

Signature infrastructure

• Modular high-performance infrared emissometer — in-house instrumentation presented at IR-EMPOWER.
• EKHI — open database of optical and thermal radiative properties for solid materials, backed by a Scientific Data (Nature) publication. EKHI supports interactive querying and visualization of emittance, reflectance, transmittance, and absorptance records.

Institutional affiliations

• The group takes part in the Functional Materials research line of the EHU Quantum Center, devoted to the experimental investigation of novel functional materials, with Iñigo González de Arrieta, Josu M. Igartua and Gabriel A. López among its listed members.

Application domains

• Community data stewardship for radiative properties
• FAIR reuse of emissivity and reflectance data
• Methodological convergence across the European emissivity community
• Open infrastructure for radiative-property research

IR-EMPOWER contributions

• Organizer of the IR-EMPOWER workshop.
• Presentation of a modular high-performance infrared emissometer.
• Presentation of an open community of radiative properties built around EKHI.
• IR-EMPOWER 2026 (programme): plenary by Iñigo González de Arrieta, New upgrades on the emissivity measurement setup at EHU; talk by Jon Gabirondo-López, EKHI: the open database of optical and radiative data; three posters (data-processing pipelines, a historical survey of radiometric emissometers, emissivity of metals in extreme conditions); Gabriel A. López on the scientific committee.

Why Thermomat is a reference pole

A working community in radiative-property science needs three things: people who measure, people who reason, and infrastructure that outlives any single project. Thermomat works on all three axes at once — running its own instrumentation, co-organizing the IR-EMPOWER workshop that brings the European community together, and maintaining EKHI as a durable open-data backbone. Few groups in the field combine all three.

External sources

• Thermomat — EHU
• IR-EMPOWER workshop
• IR-EMPOWER 2026 programme — CAE flyer
• EKHI — Scientific Data paper (Nature)
• EHU Quantum Center — Functional Materials research line