Theoretical nanophotonics

Photonics deals with the generation, propagation, control and detection of electromagnetic radiation, with many areas of fundamental and applied research in optoelectronics, optical communication, quantum technologies. Main research lines:

• Metasurfaces and photonic crystals - These are nanostructured or periodic photonic structures, whose properties depend on the geometry as well as on the optical functions of the constituent materials. We study various effect, including the enhancement of radiation-matter interaction, control of emission, topological and chiral properties.
• Classical and quantum nonlinear optics - Nonlinear effects such as the harmonic generation, Raman scattering, Kerr effect, and their enhancement thanks to confinement in photonic nanostructures. We are especially interested in purely quantum effects such as the generation of non-classical states of light through parametric fluorescence, photon blockade, and single photon nonlinear optics.
• Integrated photonics and applications – We study various systems of interest for controlling the dimensionality of light and for applications to quantum technologies and optical communication: among these, surface Bloch waves, nanocavities, ring resonators, grating couplers, modulators.

Principal investigators: Lucio Andreani, Dario Gerace, Marco Liscidini
Group members: Hanan Ali, Amideddin Mataji Kojouri, Tommaso Perani, Luca Zagaglia, Simone Zanotti, Luca Zatti