Alessandro Tredicucci

Biography

Education: He received the "Laurea" degree (summa cum laude) in Physics from the University of Pisa, Italy, in 1992, achieving at the same time the "Diploma" in physics of the Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa; he received the Ph.D. degree (summa cum laude) in physics from the Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa in 1997. His studies there focused on exciton-polariton propagation in confined systems and modifications of light-matter interaction in microcavities. Research Activity:? In 1997 he joined Bell Laboratories, Lucent Technologies, Murray Hill, NJ, in the Semiconductor Physics Research department, where he worked on the development of quantum cascade lasers with superlattice active regions. ?In November 2000 he came back to the Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa as assistant professor and in March 2003 he moved to INFM, now within CNR, where he currently holds the position of Research Director at the NANO institute. Alessandro Tredicucci has co-authored about one hundred journal papers (with over 3000 citations), has given 57 invited talks at international conferences, and holds 16 patents. He was the recipient of the 1999 Gilberto Bernardini award and of the 2003 S. Panizza award for opto-electronics of the Italian Physical Society. He was the recipient of the 2005 S. Campisano prize for condensed matter physics of the CNR and of the 2007 Copernico prize for physics.

Research Interest

Currently his activity is mainly devoted to the realization of THz photonic devices (sources and detectors) based on intersubband transitions. After giving important contributions to the development of new geometries for laser waveguides and demonstrating high intensity THz emission from superlattice active regions, he has led his group at NEST to the realization of the first THz semiconductor heterostructure laser, a milestone achievement in opto-electronics, promising to open the way for the development of wide-spread THz technology. Latest developments have now led to continuous wave emission, operation at higher temperatures and lower frequencies, and include also the fabrication of the first single-mode DFB THz lasers and of vertically emitting microdisk lasers and quasi-crystal lasers. Focus is now also on new materials and nanostructured active regions, as well as on applications, particularly concerning near-field imaging, and biological sensors. On the detection side, novel routes are being considered using either rectification in nanowire diodes or interband transitions in graphene transistors. Recently he also started to develop studies on the modification and control of light interaction with intersubband transitions in structures with strong photon confinement, observing the formation of intersubband polaritons and demonstrating the electrical and optical manipulation of polaritonic coupling. The target here is to study non-adiabatic phenomena like the expected generation of correlated photon pairs from the modulation of the quantum vacuum.