Professor Pedro Pereyra Padilla was born in Bolivia. He studied the Bachelor of Physics in La Paz, Bolivia, and the Master's and Ph.D. in Science at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM). Posdoctoral stay at the Max-Planck Institut Für Kernphysik from Heidelberg.

He has been a professor at the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, Azcapotzalco Campus, since 1978.

Among the recognitions that he has received are the UAM Award for scientific research that he received three times, he has been distinguished by the International Center for Theoretical Physics "Abdus Salam" by Trieste, Italy, as a Regular Associate (1994-2000) and Senior Associate (2000-2006). In 2004 he was Chairman of the International Conference on Superlattices, Nanostructures and Nanodevices (ICSNN). Since then, he has been a member of the program and Steering Committees of this Biannual Conference, Satellite of the ICPS (International Conference on Semiconductor Physics), dedicated to theoretical, experimental, and applied advances in nanotechnology. In 2006 he was appointed Distinguished Professor of the UAM. He has been a judge of the Mexico Award on several occasions, and since 2012 he has been a judge of the "Young Scientist Award" given by the ICSNN.

He has contributed with transcendent work in various areas of physics. Among these, in the theory of nuclear reactions, the quantum theory of electronic transport through disordered systems and periodic systems, high-temperature critical superconductivity, two-level quantum systems, tunneling time, spintronic, and emitting systems of light.


His achievements as a researcher include:

In nuclear physics, his doctoral thesis, written under the advice of Dr. Pier A. Mello, he resolved analytically and definitely a problem that several groups in the world have sought to resolve since Niels Bohr, in 1936, began to study it; The theory of nuclear reactions, with compound core formation, for an arbitrary channel number and arbitrary absorption. In this work published in the Annals of Physics (1985), the Generalized Poisson kernel was deduced, which determines the statistical distribution of the "scattering" matrices. With approximately 150 citations, this distribution is widely used in other fields of physics with analogous processes.

In condensed matter physics, he has contributed to various works to study quantum systems' transport and optoelectronic properties.

In disordered systems, he has developed the theory of multichannel quantum transport (multi-mode propagating) through disordered drivers, together with Pier Mello and Narendra Kumar. This work, published in the Annals of Physics (in 1988), has received more than 400 appointments in research journals, books, and theses and has contributed to the physics of mesoscopic systems, especially in the description of the conductance through quantum wires, essential in the miniaturization of electronic devices. The central equation of this work is known as the DMPK equation, by the initials of the author's names.

In the domain of periodic systems and semiconductor heterostructures, he has published in Physical Review Letters, the Physical Review B, and Annals of Physics several transcendental papers that make up the theory of finite periodic systems. This is a new, rigorous, more precise analytical formulation of less mathematical complexity. This theory, in which Dr. Pereyra has a leading position worldwide, is appropriate for describing quantum and electromagnetic transport properties through periodic structures and also for studying the spectrum of quantum levels, resonant states, and optoelectronic properties of real or artificial periodic systems (semiconductors, metals or superlattices). It contrasts with the existing theory that assumes an infinite size of the periodic system and that, moreover, requires many approaches. The TSPF is gradually being accepted and has been successfully applied to a wide range of physical systems. Among these, for the calculation of band structures, functions, and eigenvalues in periodic systems; to describe photoluminescence in lasers whose active zones are semiconductor superlattices, such as the blue laser (developed in the 90s); the study of physical properties of metamaterials; the transport and dynamic properties of spin in homogeneous magnetic superlattices, etc. This theory also allowed the calculation of quantum particles' transit time (or tunneling) through a physical structure and to re-derivate the effective mass approximation. His paper published in the Physical Review Letters in 2000 on tunneling time is the first theoretical demonstration of the relevance of phase time in explaining the superluminal velocities observed experimentally in 1993. These works have received, altogether, the order of 500 citations.

He has taught more than 250 courses in various subjects, from mathematics and elementary physics to advanced physics and specialized topics. His teaching experience has crystallized into course notes and textbooks. His book on Fundamentals of Quantum Physics (published in Latin America by Reverté) has been published in the English version by Springer Verlag. He has directed more than 30 terminal Projects for Engineering Physics and Physics students, two Master's theses, and three Ph.D. theses in Physics. He has organized, equipped, and put the Laboratory of Experimental Research in High Critical Temperature Superconductivity into operation at UAM Azcapotzalco Campus. He formed a research group that, in 2001, became the Area of Theoretical Physics and Condensed Matter (TMPC), of which he was the first Head of Area. The FTMC Area has won the Research Areas Award granted by UAM Azcapotzalco Campus five times.


From 1989-to 91, he was Assistant Secretary of the Mexican Society of Physics and Associate Editor of the Revista Mexicana de Física in the following two years. He has been a Member and President of the Opinion Committee of the Basic Sciences Area of the UAM and Visiting Professor at several Universities in South America, the Caribbean, the United States, and Europe. He has been co-author and sole author of more than 80 articles on theoretical and experimental research in specialized journals such as the Physical Review Letters, the Annals of Physics, the Physical Review B, D, and E, the Journal of Mathematical Physics, the Journal of Physics A, the Europhysics Letters, Physica C and E, Physica Status Solidi, etc., he has acted as referee for these journals.