People

EspLORE Team

Principal Investigator

Prof. Carlo S. Casari

Born in Milan in 1974, Master degree in Electronic Engineering in 1999,  research collaborations at Politecnico di Milano and at National Insitute for the Physic of Matter (INFM) in 2000-2001, Ph.D. in Materials Engineering in 2004. Assistant professor in 2005, Associate Professor in 2014 and Full professor at the Deprtment of Energy of Politecnico di Milano since 2019. He teaches Introduction to Nanotechnology and Physics of Nanostructures in the Bachelor and Master Degree Programmes (Materials engineering and Nanotechnology, Nuclear Engineering, Biomedical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering) at Politecnico di Milano. He has experience in the field of nanostructures and nanostructured materials, nanostructured metal oxides and carbon-based nanomaterials deposition of thin films, scanning probe techniques (atomic force microscopy and scanning tunneling microscopy), inelastic light scattering (Raman, SERS and Brillouin even in situ). He published more than 140 papers (more than 120 on ISI journals).    

Academic and Technical Staff

Prof. Valeria Russo

Valeria Russo was born in Monza, Italy in 1970. She is Associate Professor at the Energy Department of Politecnico di Milano since 2019. She graduated cum laude in Nuclear Engineering in 1995 and got her PhD in Science and Technology for Nuclear Plants in 1998, both at Politecnico di Milano. From 1999 to 2002 she worked at STMicroelectronics, Italy, as a process engineer, dealing with the development of dry-etching processes for semiconductor production. Since 2002 she works at the Micro and Nanostructured Materials Lab (NanoLab) @ Politecnico di Milano. She is coauthor of more than 60 international scientific publications. She presented numerous oral contributions and posters at national and international conferences in the field of Condensed Matter Physics. Her present activity is focused on the characterization of nanostructured materials and surfaces by Raman scattering, SERS and photoluminescence spectroscopy. Specifically she works on functional metal oxides such as Al:ZnO, WO3, TiO2, Ta:TiO2, on thermoelectric semiconductors (Bi2Te3) and on nanostructured carbon-based systems such as graphene, cluster assembled carbon films, nanotubes, sp-hybridized carbon chains.

Dr. Anna Facibeni

She was born in Alessandria in 1963. In 1989 she graduated in Chemistry at Università degli Studi di Genova. In 1990 she got a technical degree at radiochemistry laboratory. Since 1999 she works at the Micro and Nanostructured Materials Laboratory.

Prof. Andrea li Bassi

Born in Varese in 1972. In 1997 he obtained a degree summa cum laude in Nuclear Engineering at Politecnico di Milano. In 2000 he obtained a Ph.D. in Condensed Matter Physics at Durham University (UK) with the thesis “X-ray and light scattering from nanostructured thin films”. He has been assistant professor in Physics of Matter at Politecnico di Milano from 2002 to 2010 and associate professor from 2010 to 2016; he is currently Full Professor at Politecnico di Milano, Department of Energy. He is responsible of teaching and research activities of the Micro and Nanostructured Materials Laboratory. His current research interests concern the synthesis of nanostructured functional surfaces for energy applications; the investigation of supported clusters and nanostructured surfaces by Scanning Tunneling Microscopy and Spectroscopy (STM/STS); the characterization of carbon-based and metal oxide nanostructured systems by Raman scattering. He is author of more than 130 scientific papers on peer reviewed journals (www.researcherid.com/rid/B-2448-2009; h-index WoS = 32, Google Scholar = 38).

Post Docs

Dr. Francesco Tumino

Born in 1986 in Ragusa, Italy. He graduated in Physics Engineering at Politecnico di Milano where he also obtained in 2017 a PhD in Energy and Nuclear Science and Technology. He currently works as a post-doc fellow at the Micro and Nanostructured Materials Lab (NanoLab) of the Department of Energy, Politecnico di Milano. His research interests focus on the synthesis of low-dimensional nanomaterials and the study of their structural and electronic properties by means of Scanning Tunneling Microscopy and Spectroscopy.

 Sonia Peggiani

Sonia Peggiani was born in 1992 in Piacenza, Italy. She gor her PhD in Energy and Nuclear Science and Technology at Politecnico di Milano in 2021 working on EspLORE. She received her Master’s degree in Nuclear Engineering from Politecnico di Milano in 2017 with a thesis on the analysis of Nb3Sn Rutherford cable production and strand deformations carried out at CERN. Her main interests are in the physical synthesis methods and characterization of sp-hybridized carbon chains. PhD project: Production of linear carbon chain by arc discharge in liquid and pulsed laser ablation in liquid (PLAL) and their characterization.

 Subrata Ghosh

Subrata grew up in Kolaghat, India. He received his Ph.D. in 2016 from Homi Bhaba National Institute, India for the thesis on “Vertical Graphene Nanosheets: Growth, Structure and Electrochemical Performance”. He has postdoctoral experiences from the University of Manchester, UK (02/2019-02/2021); Chungbuk National University, South Korea (11/2017-12/2018) and Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research, India (12/2016-11/2017). Currently, he is a Seal of Excellence Awardee and continuing his Postdoc at the Politecnico de Milano, Italy. His research interests are designing nanostructures (nanocarbons, 2D materials, metal oxides and their composites), understanding the growth mechanism, and exploring them for electrochemical energy storage, electrothermal and wastewater applications. He has publications in high impact SCI-indexed journals (Adv. Energy Mater, Appl. Surf. Sci., 2D Mater., J. Appl. Phys., etc.) and contributed in book chapters. He gave several invited talks in various platforms and presented his research in many international conferences. He also served as a peer reviewer for ACS, IOP, RSC, Elsevier and MDPI journals.

 PhD Students

Pietro Marabotti

Pietro Marabotti was born in 1994 in Bergamo, Italy. He is a PhD student in Energy and Nuclear Science and Technology since 2019. He received his Master’s degree in Engineering Physics at Politecnico di Milano (Italy) in April 2019 with a thesis on magnetic dynamics of calcium iridate CaIrO3 probed by resonant inelastic X-ray scattering (RIXS). His main interests are the synthesis of sp-hybridized carbon chains by means of physical methods and their further characterization. PhD project: Physical synthesis of polyynes by pulsed laser ablation and arc discharge in liquid and characterization of their optical and electronic properties by means of absorption, Raman and infrared spectroscopies.

Paolo D’Agosta

Paolo D’Agosta was born in 1994 in Catania, Italy. He is a PhD student in Energy and Nuclear Science and Technology since 2020. He obtained his Master’s degree cum laude in Materials Engineering and Nanotechnology in October 2020 with a thesis focused on the synthesis and characterization of two-dimensional (2D) MoS2-WS2 heterostructures through scanning tunneling microscopy/spectroscopy (STM/STS). His main interests concern the investigation of structural, electronic and vibrational properties of 2D materials. PhD project: pulsed laser deposition (PLD) of diverse 2D materials and heterostructures characterized by means of STM/STS, Raman spectroscopy and low-electron energy diffraction (LEED).

Andrea Macrelli

Andrea Macrelli was born in 1996 in Melzo (Milano), Italy. He is a PhD student in Energy and Nuclear Science and Technology since february 2021. He received his Master’s degree in Materials Engineering and Nanotechnology at Politecnico di Milano in December 2020, with a thesis on the application of Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering (SERS) to the detection of anti-epileptic drugs using paper-based silver sensors. He is mainly interested in the synthesis by both chemical and physical methods of nanostructures for energy and sensing applications, including carbon nanostructures. PhD project: synthesis and characterization of nanostructured materials for energy conversion and storage, especially for Li-ion and post Li-ion batteries electrodes.

Simone Melesi

Simone Melesi was born in 1996 in Lecco, Italy. He is a PhD student in Energy and Nuclear Science and Technology since November 2021. He obtained his Master’s degree in Materials Engineering and Nanotechnology at Politecnico di Milano (Italy) in June 2020 with a thesis project on new polymer-protein functionalized electrospun membranes suitable for sensing of common bio-targets of great interest for biomedical applications. His main interest is the stabilization and characterization of sp-hybridized carbon chains embedded into polymer matrixes (i.e., electrospun nanofibers, spin-coated films). PhD project: Production and characterization of smart nanocomposites for energy applications: polymer-dispersed functional carbon-based materials.

Research Collaborators

Alessandro Vidale

Alessandro Vidale was born in 1991 in Milano, Italy. He currently works as a research fellow at the Micro and Nanostructured Materials Lab (NanoLab) of the Department of Energy, Politecnico di Milano. He received his Master’s degree in Materials Engineering and Nanotechnology in December 2018 with a thesis focused on the manufacture and characterization of linear sp carbon chains embedded in electrospun polymer nanofibers. His main interests concern the morphological, optical and vibrational properties of sp-carbon based nanostructures and their characterization in polymeric matrices. Research fellowship project: development of anti-counterfeiting systems based on the implementation of 1D carbon nanostructures in polymeric matrices. The research activity is part of the ERC Proof-of-Concept PROTECHT project.

Master Students

  • Alice Cartoceti
  • Andrea Taini
  • Anxhela Doko
  • Federico Civaia
  • Pierfrancesco Sansò
  • Andrea Tuarivoli
  • Chengxi Hou
  • Egor Zhdanov
  • Alessandro Paniz

Supporting Team@NanoLab

The EspLORE team will also benefit from competencies already available at the Micro- and Nanostructured Materials Lab (NanoLab) of Politecnico di Milano, Department of Energy. The expertise of some Professors and reserachers will be exploited under the coordination of the PI, Carlo Casari. The supporting team is formed by:

Supporting Team@POLIMI

For specific activities, the EspLORE team will also benefit from an already existing collaboration with the Laboratory of Molecular Dynamics and Vibrational Spectroscopy at the Department of Chemistry, Materials and Chemical Engineering of Politecnico di Milano . Professors and Researchers collaborating with the EspLORE team are:

  • Prof. Chiara Castiglioni
  • Prof. Matteo Tommasini
  • Dr. Andrea Lucotti
  • Prof. Chiara Bertarelli

Visiting

  • Prof. Tommaso del Rosso Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (Brazil)
  • Piotr Pińkowski, University of Wroclaw (Poland)

Collaborations

  • Prof. Rik Tykwinski – University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada
  • Prof. Wei Xu – Tongji University, Shanghai, People’s Republic of China
  • Prof. Franco Cataldo – Actinium Chemical Research srl, Rome, Italy
  • Dr. Mario Caironi – IIT – Italian Institute of Technology, Milan, Italy
  • Prof. Daniele Fazzi – University of Bologna, Italy
  • Prof. Slawomir Szafert – University of Wroclaw, Poland

Alumni and former members

Dr. Patrick Serafini

He was born in 1994 in Teramo, Italy. He is a PhD student in Energy and Nuclear Science and Technology since 2019. He graduated magna cum laude in Materials Engineering and Nanotechnology in December 2018 with a thesis on Density Functional Theory simulations of two-dimensional sp-sp2 carbon nanostructures. His interests are mainly focused on molecular modeling of sp-carbon based nanostructures and nanomaterials. PhD project: theoretical investigation of the electronic, vibrational and optical properties of carbon atom wires (CAWs) and hybrid sp-sp2 nanostructures by means of Density Functional Theory (DFT).

Dr. Alberto Milani

Alberto Milani was born in 1980 in Erba – Italy. In 2005, he graduated in Materials Engineering at Politecnico di Milano where he also obtained a PhD in Materials Engineering in April 2009. Since 2005, he joined the research group led by Prof. Zerbi and Prof. Castiglioni as assistant professor and researcher. His scientific interest focuses on computational materials science and vibrational spectroscopy, in particular on the application of state-of-the-art quantum chemical methods for the investigation of the spectroscopic response of polyconjugated molecules and polymers.

Dr. Andi Rabia

Andi Rabia was born in 1989 in Lushnje, Albania. He got his Phd in Energy and Nuclear Science and Technology at Politecnico di Milano in 2021. He received his Master’s degree in Materials and Nanotechnology Engineering at Politecnico di Milano (Italy) in 2017 with a thesis about Scanning Tunneling Microscopy and Spectroscopy (STM/STS) of sp1-hybridized carbon atom wires. He worked on EspLORE in the investigation of sp-hybridized carbon-based nanostructures by means of Scanning Tunneling Microscopy and characterization of their structural and electronic properties by means of Raman Spectroscopy and Scanning Tunneling Spectroscopy (STS). PhD project: On-surface synthesis of carbon-based nanostructures and in-situ characterization by means of Scanning Tunneling Microscopy (STM).