Short BIO

I studied at Politecnico di Milano (Italy), where I got my Degree in Electronic Engineering in 2003 and the Ph.D. in Physics in 2007, working on linear and non-linear near-field microscopy and on the near-field properties of metal nanoparticles. In 2008 I was awarded a Humboldt Fellowship for Postdoctoral Researchers, which I spent working in the group of Prof. Bert Hecht in Würzburg (Germany) focusing on near-field polarization engineering with optical cross antennas and on the impedance description of plasmonic antenna circuits.

I have been Assistant Professor (Ricercatore) since 2010 and Associate Professor since 2014 at the Physics Department, Politecnico di Milano (Italy).

My research interests are in nano-optics and plasmonics. At present my main activities are focused on:

• Polarization control and chirality at the nanoscale
• Linear and nonlinear properties of Au nanoantennas
• Mid-infrared plasmonics and sensing with heavily-doped semiconductors
• Metasurfaces for augmented reality

I was the coordinator of the FET-Open EU project GEMINI ("GErmanium Mid-Infrared plasmoNIcs for sensing") and of the national PRIN project "Plasmon enhanced vibrational circular dichroism". I am currently the coordinator of the national PRIN project "TWIST - Lossless surface waves for chiral spectroscopy" and a Project Manager at the Smart Eyewear Lab, a joint initiative by Politecnico di Milano and EssilorLuxottica.

I am the Past President of the Italian Society for Optics and Photonics (SIOF) and a current Board Member of the European Optical Society (EOS). Moreover, I am currently an elected member of the Equal Opportunities Committee at Politecnico di Milano.

Selected publications

(see the links on the right side of the page for the full publication list)

• A, Di Francescantonio, A. Zilli, D. Rocco, L. Coudrat, F. Conti, P. Biagioni, L. Duò, A. Lemaitre, C. De Angelis, G. Leo, M. Finazzi, M. Celebrano “All-optical free-space routing of upconverted light by metasurfaces via nonlinear interferomety” Nature Nanotechnology 19, 298 (2024)
• E. Mogni, G. Pellegrini, J. Gil-Rostra, F. Yubero, G. Simone, S. Fossati, J. Dostálek, R. Martínez Vázquez, R. Osellame, M. Celebrano, M. Finazzi, P. Biagioni “One-dimensional photonic crystal for surface mode polarization control” Adv. Opt. Mater. 2022
• M.P. Fischer, M. Maccaferri, K. Gallacher, J. Frigerio, G. Pellegrini, D.J. Paul, G. Isella, A. Leitenstorfer, P. Biagioni, D. Brida “Field-resolved detection of the temporal response of a single plasmonic antenna in the mid-infrared” Optica 6, 898-903 (2021)
• F. Mattioli, G. Mazzeo, G. Longhi, S. Abbate, G. Pellegrini, M. Celebrano, M. Finazzi, L. Duò, C. Zanchi, M. Tommasini, M. Pea, S. Cibella, F. Sciortino, L. Baldassarre, A. Nucara, M. Ortolani, and P. Biagioni “Plasmonic superchiral lattice resonances in the mid-infrared” ACS Photonics 7, 2676 (2020)
• T. Taliercio and P. Biagioni “Semiconductor infrared plasmonics” Nanophotonics 8, 949 (2019)
• G. Pellegrini, M. Finazzi, M. Celebrano, L. Duò, M. A. Iatì, O. M. Maragò, and P. Biagioni “Superchiral surface waves for all-optical enantiomer separation” J. Phys. Chem. C 123, 28336 (2019)
• G. Pellegrini, M. Finazzi, M. Celebrano, L. Duò, and P. Biagioni “Chiral surface waves for enhanced circular dichroism” - Phys. Rev. B 95, 241402(R) (2017).
• L. Baldassarre, E. Sakat, J. Frigerio, A. Samarelli, K. Gallacher, E. Calandrini, G. Isella, D. K. Paul, M. Ortolani, and P. Biagioni "Midinfrared plasmon-enhanced spectroscopy with germanium antennas on silicon substrates" - Nano Lett. 15, 7225 (2015).
• M. Celebrano, X. Wu, M. Baselli, S. Großmann, P. Biagioni, A. Locatelli, C. De Angelis, G. Cerullo, R. Osellame, B. Hecht, L. Duò, F. Ciccacci, and M. Finazzi "Mode matching in multiresonant plasmonic nanoantennas for enhanced second harmonic generation" - Nature Nanotechnology 10, 412 (2015).
• F. Bottegoni, M. Celebrano, M. Bollani, P. Biagioni, G. Isella, F. Ciccacci, and M. Finazzi "Spin voltage generation through optical excitation of complementary spin populations" - Nature Mater. 13, 790 (2014).
• P. Biagioni, J.-S. Huang, and B. Hecht "Nanoantennas for visible and infrared radiation" - Rep. Prog. Phys. 75, 024402 (2012).

LATEST NEWS

• April 30th, 2024 - Old data but still valuable and novel! I am very happy that a collaboration from some years ago with Riccardo Sapienza is finally published as a paper on the Journal of the European Optical Society: "Germanium Fabry-Perot nanoresonators investigated by cathodoluminescence spectroscopy"
• December 5th, 2023 - What a pleasure to announce a new work published on Nature Nanotechnology! "All-optical free-space routing of upconverted light by metasurfaces via nonlinear interferometry" is now online.
• July 5-7, 2023 - We had a great time hosting the PLASMONICA workshop again at Politecnico di Milano for its 10th edition! This adventure, which started here at Politecnico in 2013, is still lively and in very good shape!!! More than one hundred researchers gathered to discuss the latest results and the forefront perspectives of nano-optics:
• January 27th, 2023 - Congratulations to Francesco Rusconi\, who today defended cum laude his Ph.D. thesis "Enhanced infrared spectroscopies"! A special thanks to the committee members Leonetta Baldassarre and Thierry Taliercio. During three years of hard work, Francesco covered different aspects of surface-enhanced spectroscopies in the mid-infrared, from tip-enhanced techniques to dielectric antennas, from infrared absorption to superchiral sensing.
• August 19th, 2022 - One further step towards demonstrating our paradigm for surface-enhanced chiroptical sensing! "One-Dimensional Photonic Crystal for Surface Mode Polarization Control" published today on Advanced Optical Materials.
• May 10th, 2021 - Controlling dielectric nanoantennas with temperature! "Optical tuning of dielectric nanoantennas for thermo-optically reconfigurable nonlinear metasurfaces" online on Optics Letters.
• May 3rd, 2021 - Finally online! "Tunable broadband light emission from graphene" discusses the control of hot carrier photoluminescence with planar cavities
• December 31st, 2020 - Published online on the last day of 2020! "Spectral characterization of mid-infrared Bloch surface waves excited on a truncated 1D photonic crystal" in collaboration with Sapienza University and IFN-CNR.
• September 1st, 2020 - Welcome to Dr Thorsten Feichtner\, who is joining us for 18 months with a MSCA fellowship financed by the H2020 program of the EU Commission! Thorsten's project will be at the intersection between nanophotonics\, nonlinear optics\, and nanocircuitry... stay tuned!!!
• August 19th, 2020 - just published on ACS Photonics: "Plasmonic superchiral lattice resonances in the mid-infrared", the first results of the PRIN project "Plasmon-enhanced vibrational circular dichroism"!
• August 10th, 2020- "Broadband control of the optical properties of semiconductors through site-controlled self-assembly of microcrystals": in a collaboration between the University Milano Bicocca and Politecnico di Milano we investigate the optical properties of periodic silicon microcrystals for monolithic optoelectronic devices.
• July 13th 20 - still another paper from the GEMINI consortium!!! "Characterization of integrated waveguides by atomic-force-microscopy-assisted mid-infrared imaging and spectroscopy", where we employ photothermal induced resonance microscopy for the on-chip characterization of waveguides
• May 5th, 2020 - "Spin orbitronics at a topological insulator-semiconductor interface" just published on Phys. Rev. B, happy to contribute with nano-optical simulations!
• August 28th, 2019- "Evidence of Cascaded Third-Harmonic Generation in Noncentrosymmetric Gold Nanoantennas" now online on Nano Letters!
• May 31st, 2019 - review paper "Semiconductor infrared plasmonics" now online! A lot of work and of inspiring discussions shared with Thierry Taliercio at the University of Montpellier... hope you will enjoy it!
• May 6th, 2019- a wonderful collaboration: "Ultrafast generation and control of an electron vortex beam via chiral plasmonic near fields" now published online on Nature Materials! See also the dissemination video online!
• April 5th, 2019 - "Tip-Enhanced Infrared Difference-Nanospectroscopy of the Proton Pump Activity of Bacteriorhodopsin in Single Purple Membrane Patches" now online, we were happy to contribute with combined optical and thermal simulations!
• December 12th, 2018 - the GEMINI consortium goes nonlinear! "Plasmonic mid-infrared third harmonic generation in germanium nanoantennas" just published online on Light: Science & Applications
• July 25th, 2018 - "Benchmarking the use of heavily doped Ge for plasmonics and sensing in the mid-infrared" just published online on ACS Photonics: How good is Ge compared to Au for mid-IR plasmonics?
• June 13th, 2018 - Superchiral surface waves on the cover of Chirality!
• June 1st, 2018 - Chiral plasmons meet electrons on arXiv: "Generation and control of an ultrafast electron vortex beam via chiral plasmonic near-fields"
• April 30th, 2018- Our sensitivity test on Plasmon-Enhanced Second Harmonic Sensing is finally out in J. Phys. Chem. C!
• March 27th, 2018 - "Superchiral surface waves for all-optical enantiomer separation" just posted on arXiv: from chiroptical spectroscopy to chiral forces!!!
• March 9th, 2018 - "Evidence for cascaded third harmonic generation in non-centrosymmetric gold nanoantennas", i.e., SHG matters for THG as well!
• January 30th, 2018 - "Limits of Kirchhoff’s Laws in Plasmonics": how careful should we be when using impedance descriptions for plasmonic nanocircuits?