People
Group Leader
Prof. Luca Dal Negro
Luca Dal Negro received both the Laurea in physics, cum laude, in 1999 and the Ph.D. degree in semiconductor physics from the University of Trento, Italy, in 2003. After his Ph.D. in 2003 he joined MIT as a post-doctoral research associate. Since January 2006 he has been a faculty member in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and in the Material Science Division at Boston University (BU). He is currently a Full Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and a member of the Photonics Center. He also holds a joint appointment in the Physics Department at Boston University. Prof. Dal Negro manages and conducts research projects on light scattering from aperiodic media, nano-optics and nanoplasmonics, silicon-based nanophotonics, and computational electromagnetics of complex structures. He has authored and coauthored more than 220 technical articles and received several Awards, including the College of Engineering Excellence in Research Award and the National Science Foundation (NSF) Career Award. In 2017 Prof. Dal Negro was elected Fellow of the Optical Society of America (OSA) for “his numerous contributions in the theoretical and experimental aspects of wave interaction with aperiodic nanostructures”
Email: dalnegro at bu.edu
Current Group Members
Graduate Students
Yilin Zhu
Currently a PhD candidate in Prof. Dal Negro’s group, his main interest is in the simulations of the electromagnetic properties of dielectric nanostructures with aperiodic geometrical configurations. He also concentrates on the inverse design of advanced diffractive devices for imaging and spectroscopy with network and optimization techniques.
Email: ylzhu96 at bu.edu
Tornike Shubitidze
Received a BS at the University of New Hampshire in 2019 in Physics where he worked on developing unmanned low-frequency electromagnetic sensors at the Cold Regions Research Engineering Laboratory in Hanover, NH. He is currently a PhD candidate at Boston University working in Prof. Dal Negro’s lab on the fabrication and characterization of complex photonic systems, non-linear optics and quantum optics.
Email: tornike at bu.edu
Roberto Riganti
I am a second-year physics PhD student in the Physics Department at BU working with Prof. Dal Negro on network-driven computational methods for materials design and photonics . My research focuses on inverse problems using adaptive physics-informed neural networks (PINNs). I model heat transfer in complex geometries beyond the traditional Fourier regime and radiative transfer in semiconductor and photonic systems.
Email: rober16 at edu
Smridhi Chawla
I am a PhD student in the Physics Department at BU working with Prof. Dal Negro on the fabrication and characterization of novel materials for aberration-free meta-lenses.
Email: smridhi at bu.edu
Kristian Munnikhuis
I am a PhD student in the Physics Department at BU working with Prof. Dal Negro on deposition methods and optical characterization of tunalbe optical materials for meta-optics device applications.
Email: kmunnik at bu.edu
Undergraduate Students
Bowen Ma
I am Bowen Ma, I am a senior year undergraduate student majoring in computer engineering. I received a UROP Fellowship to work with Prof .Dal Negro on the inverse designs of nano-photonics devices and metagratings based on topology optimization and GLOnets.
Email: bma1024 at bu.edu
Former Group Members
Post-Docs
Dr. Fabrizio Sgrignuoli
Ph.D. University if Trento (Italy), Department of Physics
Computational modeling of complex photonic structures and metamaterials. Multiple light scattering in random media.
Email: sgrigno at bu.edu
Current position: Institute of Applied Sciences and Intelligent Systems, National Research Council, Italy
Dr. Carlo Forestiere
Current position: Associate Professor, University of Naples Federico II, Italy
Ph.D University Federico II of Naples, Department of Electrical Engineering
Electromagnetic simulations of micromagnetic systems and plasmonic structures.
Dr. Antonio Capretti
Current position: Data scientist, Objectiv, Netherlands
Ph.D. Electrical Engineering, University of Naples Federico II, Italy
Optical characterization, design and modelling of novel materials and nanostructures for Nano-Optics, including nonlinear optical generation and light emission.
Dr. Salvatore Minissale
Current position: R&D Optical Scientist at Terabee
I received my MSc at the University of Catania, Italy in December 2003 and my PhD at the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands in March 2009. I moved to Boston in March 2010, after one year postdoc at the Institute for photonic science (ICFO) in Barcelona, Spain. My main research interests involve non-linear techniques, ultrafast optical spectroscopies such as pump-probe experiments, optical gain measurements on plasmonic and semiconductor nanostructures, Z-scan and Second Harmonic Generation (SHG) techniques for Nonlinear optics of nanoplasmonic structures.
Dr. Emanuele F. Pecora
Current Position: Sr. Science and Tech. Fellow, at DOE Solar, Switzerland
Born in 1983, Emanuele F. Pecora received his master degree in Physics (summa cum laude) in 2006 and the PhD in Physics in 2010 defending the thesis “Growth, properties and processing of group IV semiconductor nanowires” at University of Catania, IT. He worked as PostDoc fellow at Matis labs (Catania, IT) and then he joined the group in March 2011. His main research interest include growth and characterization of group IV semiconductor nanowires, ion irradiation effects in silicon nanostructures, luminescence properties of silicon nanostructures, rare earth optical properties, dopant diffusion and clustering in crystalline and amorphous silicon. Now, his research activity involves gain measurements and ultrafast optical properties of nitrides in the UV region.
Dr. Svetlana Boriskina
Current Position: Research Scientist, Mechanical Engineering, MIT
I joined the group as a Research Associate in January 2008. Previously I worked as a Research Fellow at the University of Nottingham (Nottingham, UK) and a Senior Research Scientists at V. Karazin Kharkov National University (Kharkov, Ukraine).
I received my MSc and PhD degrees from the School of Radiophysics of V. Karazin Kharkov National University with a PhD thesis entitled “Scattering of surface waves and beams by open waveguide discontinuities & reflectors”. My main research interests include: boundary integral equations methods in computational electromagnetics, nanophotonics and plasmonics; theory and design of dielectric and semiconductor microcavities; whispering gallery modes coupling in photonic molecules and coupled-resonator optical waveguides; optical fiber mode solvers; and most recently, light scattering and localization in periodic and aperiodic photonic crystals.
Dr. Ning-Ning Feng, Post Doctoral Associate
Computational electromagnetics and design of plasmonic and photonic structures.
Former Graduate Students
Wesley Britton, PhD student
Fabrication and characterization of tunable optical metamaterials for optical nonlinearity enhancement
Email:wab at bu.edu
Yuyao Chen, PhD student
Electromagnetic simulations of plasmonic nanostructures and homogenization theory of metamaterials.
Email:yuyao at bu.edu
Mr. Sean Gorsky, MS student
Design and characterization of diffractive optical devices and nanostructures.
Mr. David Taylor Henderson, MS student
Design and characterization of aperiodic photonic structures based on number theory.
Current Position: Mathworks, Inc.
Mr. Yu Wang, PhD student
Fabrication and optical characterization of active metamaterials and photonic structures.
Development of alternative plasmonic materials based on Silicon-compatible platforms
ENZ tunable media and metamaterials
Mr. Ren Wang, PhD student
Current Position: Imaging Scientist, Boston Process Technologies, Inc.
Computational electromagnetic and design of optical materials
Mr. Ran Zhang, PhD student
Novel plasmonic sensing mateirals and active nano-fibers
Mr. Selcuk Yerci, PhD student
B.S. Middle East Technical University, 2004, Ankara, Turkey
M.S. Middle East Technical University, 2007, Ankara, Turkey
Ph.D Electrical and Computer Science Engineering, Boston UniversityCurrent Position: Assistant Professor, METU, Ankara, Turkey
Fabrication and optical characterization of Si and Ge nanocrystals formed into different matrices using FTIR, Raman, XPS, XRD and PL. Silicon photonics and solar cells
Miss. Dianmin Lin, MSstudent
Current Position: post-doctoral scholar, ECE, Standford University
B.S. Optoelectronics, Harbin Institute of Technology (China)
M.S. Boston University, Electrical and Computer Science EngineeringTesting and optical characterization of novel solar cell materials and photonic structures, nano-imprint lithography, novel lithographic techniques for scalable nanoimprint, fabrication and characterization of polymer-based photonic structures.
Mr. Travis Rich, MS student
B.S. Boston University, Electrical and Computer Science Engineering
Current Position: Ph.D. Student, Media Lab, MITLight propagation and photon transport in complex waveguides, photon Monte Carlo simulations, experimental characterization of photonic anomalous diffusion in fractals and aperiodic structures.
Dr. Rui Li, PhD student
Current Position: Postdoctoral Fellow at University of Toronto
Optical spectroscopy of silicon nanocrystals, ultrafast emission spectroscopy, optical gain measurements, energy transfer studies in nanocrystals-based systems. Fabrication of Si-based nanomaterials.
Dr. Ashwin Gopinath, PhD student
Current Position: Assistant Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, MIT
Current Research: Working on developing self assembles planar optical and electrical devices using DNA origami for single molecule biophysics experiments
Dissertation: Electromagnetic Field Enhancement and Light Localization in Deterministic Aperiodic Nanostructures
Mr. Joseph Patrick Warga, MS student
Occupation: Photonics Engineer
Fabrication and characterization of Silicon Rich Nitride and Erbium Doped Silicon Rich Nitride. Experiments include magnetron sputtering, ebeam evaporation, rapid thermal annealing, photolithography, electrical characterization (I-V, C-V, conductivity), photoluminescence spectroscopy, transmission spectroscopy, ellipsometry, energy-dispersive x-ray spectroscopy, transverse electron microscopy, and cathode luminescence.
Mr. Roman Shugayev, MS student
Optics of fractals, computational modeling of aperiodic nanoparticle arrays.
Mr. Patrick Gregg, PhD student Electrical Engineering
B.S. Optics (University of Rochester)
B.A. Physics/ Japanese Language (University of Rochester)
Mr. Nate Lawrence,PhD student
Current Position: Philips Lumileds
B.S. Physics (University of Richmond)
Electron-beam nanofabrication of plasmonics devices and photonic crystals structures, Femtosecond optical spectroscopy of nanoscale materials, electromagnetic scattering simulations of plasmonic structures, radiative engineering with active nanopillars.
Mr. Gary Walsh, PhD student
Current Position: Researcher, US Army Natick Soldier RDGE Center
B.S. Electrical Engineering (Columbia University)
B.S. Applied Physics(Providence College)
M.S. Electrical Engineering (Boston University)Electromagntic simulation, fabrication and optical characterization of two-dimensional periodic and aperiodic diffraction gratings and plasmonic devices for optical limiting applicatiions, light scattering spectroscopy of aperiodic systems.
Ms. Alyssa Pasquale, PhD student
Current Position: Researcher, Argonne National Lab.
B.S. Electrical Engineering (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute)
M.S. Electrical Engineering (Boston University)Fabrication and optical characterization of two-dimensional periodic and aperiodic diffraction gratings and plasmonic devices for optical sensing. Surface Enhanced Raman Scattering (SERS) with engineered plasmonic structures.
Mr. Sylvanus Lee, PhD student in Mechanical Engineering
B.Eng Mechanical Engineering (Hong Kong University of Science and Technology)
M. Phil Mechanical Engineering (Hong Kong University of Science and Technology)Microfluidic and optofluidics with plasmonic structures, microfabrication and nanofabrication techniques for multiparametric plasmon sensors, optical characterization of sensor devices.
Mr. Jacob Trevino, PhD student in Materials Science and Eng.
Current Position: CUNY Nanofabrication facility manager
B.S. Physics/B.A. Mathematics (Susquehanna University)
M.S. Electrical Engineering (Case Western Reserve University)Materials Science of Si-based nanostructures, deposition techniques, nanofabrication and elctron beam lithography of plasmonic-photonic structures, optical characterization of plasmonic structures, Finite Element and analytical calcualtions of multiple light scattering (GMT) in aperiodic plasmonic/photonic structures.
Visiting students
Mrs. Ekin Aslan,PhD student
(Erciyes University, Turkey)
Fractal optics and nanoplasmonics
Mr. Stefano Prezioso, PhD student
(University of Trento, Italy)
Electrical characterization of Si-based nanostructures
Ms. Giuliana Dimartino, visiting MS student
M.S. University of Catania, MATIS Centre, Physics
Current Position: Imperial College, Ph. D. student, PhysicsPlasmonics Solar Cells
Mr. Francesco Floris, PhD student
(University of Pavia ,Italy)
Plasmonic biosensors and gratings