Universidad Politécnica de Tapachula

Cabellos Research Group

Computational Chemistry of Clusters and Materials Group. We predict the structure of clusters and materials and explain their properties at finite temperature using first-principles methods.

Students and faculty in front of the UPTap monumental letters on the Tapachula campus.

UPTap campus, Tapachula · 2026Photo: UPTap

Dr. José Luis Cabellos QuirozPrincipal investigator · SNII Level II
citations · Google Scholar
2,955
published works
112
journals and books
68
co-authors
271
years publishing · 2008–2026
19

Who we are

The Cabellos Research Group is based at the Universidad Politécnica de Tapachula, in Chiapas, within the Research and Technological Development Office. It is led by Dr. José Luis Cabellos Quiroz.

We use first-principles methods to answer concrete questions: which structure a cluster adopts, how it changes with temperature, why an unusual bond is stable and how a material responds to light.

Our work is published in international journals and carried out in collaboration with groups in Mexico, Latin America and Asia.

The question behind our work

What structure does a system have, and how does it determine what we measure?

Location
Tapachula, Chiapas, Mexico
Computing
UPTap supercomputing cluster

Research areas

Four research areas that share methods and systems. Every figure comes from one of the group’s papers.

  1. Cluster structure prediction

    Global-minimum searches on the potential energy surfaces of atomic and molecular clusters using evolutionary algorithms coupled to density functional theory.

    Figure: Rojas-González et al., Molecules (2024) · CC BY 4.0

  2. Chemical bonding and aromaticity

    Design and analysis of species with unconventional bonding, such as planar hypercoordinate carbons, molecular stars and tubular boron motifs.

    Figure: Rojas-González et al., Molecules (2024) · CC BY 4.0

  3. Optical and electronic properties of materials

    Linear and nonlinear optical response, band structure and thermoelectric properties of solids, surfaces and two-dimensional systems.

    Figure: Castillo-Quevedo et al., Materials (2020) · CC BY 4.0

Recent publications

The group’s latest work. Each title links to the original version.

Want to work with us?

We welcome undergraduate and graduate students interested in computational chemistry and physics, as well as collaboration proposals from other groups.