On November 1, 2020, Professor José Mª Gómez Rodríguez, from the Department of Physics of Condensed Matter and also member of Instituto Nicolás Cabrera, died after a long illness. At 58 years of age, he leaves behind relevant contributions in the field of Surface Physics and Near Field Microscopy.

José María, or Chema as we all knew him, successfully balanced his research in physics, excellent teaching and technology transfer activities through the company Nanotec Electrónica SL, which was pioneer in our university. Witnesses of his good work, scientific rigor and ultimately, of his teaching, have been 6 doctors trained by him in his laboratory and a large number of undergraduate, master and graduate students. As well, of course, his colleagues, including members of the aforementioned department, INC and IFIMAC, our faculty and multiple institutions with which Professor Gómez Rodríguez has collaborated throughout his professional activity.

From his scientific career, it is worth highlighting his studies of tunneling microscopy, surface physics and more recently, two-dimensional materials. All this with the nexus of scientific instrumentation that led him to build highly sophisticated systems and to make numerous contributions to WSxM control and analysis software for near-field microscopes.

In July 2014, Chema was one of the organizers of the XXI International Summer School “Nicolás Cabrera”, devoted to “New frontiers in Scanning Force Microscopy: from ultrahigh-vacuum to biological material”.

The memory of his sense of duty, his professionalism, his humanism and his distilled and personal humour will remain with us forever, a trait, without a doubt, of great intelligence. Rest in peace, colleague.