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Alessandro Pitanti

  • Associate Researcher
  • alessandro.pitanti@unipi.it
  • Pisa
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Short Bio

I graduated from University of Pisa in 2006, defending a thesis on the theoretical optical properties of Si/Ge multi-quantum-well heterostructures investigated with the tight-binding technique.

Moving to University of Trento for my PhD, under the supervision of prof. Lorenzo Pavesi, I started to focus on experimental Si photonics in visible and near-infrared range, in particular on silicon nanocrystals as active material in different waveguide and resonating photonic devices.

In my first post-doc at NEST – Scuola Normale Superiore and CNR-Nano, in Alessandro Tredicucci's group, I shifted to the THz spectral range, where I developed efficient, room-temperature detectors based on semiconductor nanowires and smart photonic structure from light extraction and control in Quantum Cascade Lasers.

Joining my expertise in photonics and charge transport, I won a Marie Curie fellowship with the aim of devising opto-electro-mechanical systems under the supervision of prof. Oskar Painter at the California Institute of Technology.

After coming back to NEST in 2014, I obtained a permanent position in 2017, I am currently consolidating new research lines in near-infrared and THz optomechanics, as well as in strain engineering in 2D materials.

 

Alessandro Pitanti is now associate professor of Experimental Physics at University of Pisa.

Research Interests

My research efforts are mostly focused in micro and nano-scale optomechanics, joining together photonics devices and mechanical resonators for novel applications in the field of classical and quantum optics. In the near-infrared range I am mostly interested in exploiting the vectorial properties of photons for enabling angular optomechanics, where both polarization and orbital angular momentum are coupled with mechanical degrees of freedom on the chip-scale. In the long wavelength range, including GHz and THz, I developed new detection schemes employing thermomechanical bolometers, capable of fast operation and scalability for sensor arrays. Employing optical probes at different wavelength, I also investigate behaviour of purely mechanical resonators, creating artificial material or complex substrates for nanoscale actuation of 2D materials.
The devices I investigate span from photonic and phononic crystals to optical and mechanical metasurfaces as well as cantilevers, trampoline membranes and Surface Acoustic Waves, made of group-IV, group III-V or metallic materials. Hybrid systems are also being investigated especially concerning their use in quantum computing applications.

Selected Recent Projects

Selected Publications

  • Enhanced Sensitivity of Sub-THz Thermomechanical Bolometers Exploiting Vibrational Nonlinearity [2026] 
  • Membrane-Mediated Conversion of Near-Infrared Amplitude Modulation into the Self-Mixing Signal of a Terahertz Quantum Cascade Laser [2025] 
  • FPGA Readout for Frequency-Multiplexed Array of Micromechanical Resonators for Sub-Terahertz Imaging [2024] 
  • Gigahertz Modulation of a Fully Dielectric Nonlocal Metasurface [2024] 
  • Highly dispersive multiplexed micromechanical device array for spatially resolved sensing and actuation [2024] 
  • A. Pitanti, T. Makkonen, M. F Colombano, S. Zanotto, L. Vicarelli, M. Cecchini, A. Griol, D. Navarro-Urrios, C. Sotomayor-Torres, A. Martinez, J.Ahopelto, High-frequency mechanical excitation of a silicon nanostring with piezoelectric aluminum nitride layers, Phys. Rev. Appl. 14, 014054 (2020)
  • M. Fink, M. Kalaee, R. Norte, A. Pitanti, O. Painter, Efficient microwave frequency conversion mediated by a photonics compatible silicon nitride nanobeam oscillator, Quantum Sci. Tech. 5, 034011 (2020)
  • S. Zanotto, A. Tredicucci, D. Navarro‐Urrios, M. Cecchini, G. Biasiol, D. Mencarelli, L. Pierantoni, A. Pitanti, Optomechanics of chiral dielectric metasurfaces, Adv. Opt. Mat. 8, 1901507 (2020)
  • M.F. Colombano, G. Arregui, N. E. Capuj, A. Pitanti, J. Maire, A. Griol, B. Garrido, A. Martínez, C. M Sotomayor-Torres, D. Navarro-Urrios, Synchronization of optomechanical nanobeams by mechanical interaction, Phys. Rev. Lett. 123, 017402 (2019)
  • Masini*, A. Pitanti*, L. Baldacci, M. S. Vitiello, R. Degl'Innocenti, H. E. Beere, D. A. Ritchie and A. Tredicucci, Continuous-wave laser operation of a dipole antenna terahertz microresonator, Light Sci. Appl. 6, e17054 (2017). * equal contributions
  • M. Fink, M. Kalaee, A. Pitanti, R. Norte, L. Heinzle, M. Davanço, K. Srinivasan and O. Painter, Quantum electromechanics on silicon nitride nanomembranes, Nat. Comm. 7, 12396 (2016)
  • A. Pitanti, J. M. Fink, A. H. Safavi-Naeini, C.U. Lei, J. T. Hill, A.Tredicucci and O. Painter, Strong opto-electro-mechanical coupling in a silicon photonic crystal cavity, Opt. Expr. 23, 228907 (2015).
  • A. Pitanti, D. Ercolani, L. Sorba, S. Roddaro, F. Beltram, L. Nasi, G. Salviati and A. Tredicucci, InAs/InP/InSb Nanowires as Low Capacitance n-n Heterojunction Diodes, Phys. Rev. X 1, 011006 (2011).
  • A. Pitanti, M. Ghulinyan, D. Navarro-Urrios, G. Pucker and L. Pavesi, Probing the spontaneous emission dynamics in Si-nc based microdisk resonators, Phys. Rev. Lett. 104, 103901 (2010).