Nicolás Cabrera Sánchez (1913–1989), was a Spanish physicist and professor of the Autonomous University of Madrid, who did important work on the theories of crystals and the oxidisation of metals. He is known for the development of the Burton–Cabrera–Frank theory for crystal growth. He spent many years in exile from Spain during the Francoist State.
Life
Nicolás Cabrera was born in Madrid in 1913, son of another famous Spanish physicist Blas Cabrera
Due to the Spanish Civil War, he and his family moved to Paris in 1938. His doctoral advisors were Louis de Broglie and Léon Brillouin. Two years later, he published together with Keith Burton and Charles Frank, what became known as the Burton–Cabrera–Frank (BCF) theory for crystal growth.
In 1971, he returned to Spain, founding the physics department and working as professor at the Autonomous University of Madrid (UAM).