Our work is in the field of theoretical and computational nanoscience. The main emphasis is on fundamental properties of nanoscale structures, particularly low-dimensional quantum systems, and their applications in novel nanodevices.

The physical systems that we are investigating range from semiconductor nanostructures to organic polymers and oligomers, and more recently, to some biomolecules and their interface with inorganic structures in hybrid devices. We focus on the interpretation of different types of experiments, from linear and nonlinear optical spectroscopies to transport experiments, and have focused especially on coherent effects in regimes of ultra-high spatial and temporal resolution.

The methods that we use range from ab initio density functional to semiempirical schemes to understand processes on the atomic and molecular scale, and to investigate the structural, electronic, transport and optical properties of materials. We are also developing and using novel theoretical approaches, based both on the direct diagonalization of the exact hamiltonian, to account for many-body interactions that become crucial when electrons are strongly confined, and ab-initio density-matrix schemes, to describe the excitonic effects without the need of semi-empirical parameters.

The group operates within the Istituto Nazionale per la Fisica della Materia (INFM) through the National Center for nanoStructures and bioSystems at Surfaces (S3) and at the Physics Department of the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia.

Last Updated February 2007
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