Our Goal

Our main research goal is to improve our understanding and knowledge of the operating principles of nanophotonic devices, by studying their ultrafast response (down to a few femtoseconds) over a wide frequency range (from the ultraviolet to the terahertz region), as well as by investigating unconventional light-matter interactions at the nanoscale. The ability of plasmonic nanostructures to confine light in nanovolumes well beyond the diffraction limit, together with the possibility of considerably enhancing the local electromagnetic field in plasmonic and dielectric metasurfaces, are bound to open exceptional perspectives for many applications that we plan to explore. These include, e.g, (i) reduced-dimensionality materials with improved optical / charge transport performance, (ii) transformative terahertz nanotechnologies for miniaturized detection and ultrafast communications, (iii) quantum light sources based on metasurfaces; (iv) nonlinear optical nanodevices for on-chip communications and signal processing; (v) ultra-sensitive nanoplasmonic tools for chemical and biological identification; (vi) new artificial nanomaterials for photocatalysis.