Research Activities

Today transparent ceramics as well as single crystals  are very important as laser hosts for rare earth dopant ions emmitting from Visible to Infrared spectral region. Laser gain materials, both pure and mixed compositions, are critical in determining the efficiency, wavelength range, and overall performance of laser systems. Mixed matrices are advantageous in order to obtain broader absorption and emission spectra with respect to mono composition hosts. The advantage of obtaining broader absorption spectra is in the possibility of pump the laser material efficiently with the suitable laser diode. The possibility of obtaining broader emission spectra is even of greater importance in order to achieve wide tunability range and to generate and amplify ultrashort laser pulses suitable for different applications, such as environmental monitoring, laser material processing, particle acceleration in laser excited plasma. We have focused our activity principally on both pure and mixed compositions polychristalline ceramics such as: Garnets, in pure or mixed compositions: YAG (Yttrium Aluminum Garnet), YSAG (Yttrium Scandium Aluminum Garnet), LuAG (Lutetium Aluminum Garnet), Gd-YAG (Gadolinium Yttrium Aluminum Garnet), Sesquioxides: pure Lu2O3, Y2O3, Sc2O3, and combinations thereof to achieve mixed compositions, Fluorides: CaF2.

Metasurfaces can be opportunely and specifically designed to manipulate electromagnetic wavefronts. A large variety of metasurface-based optical devices such as planar lenses, beam deflectors, polarization converters and so on, have been designed and fabricated. Of particular interest are tunable metasurfaces, which allow the modulation of the optical response of a metasurface. Response tunability can be achieved through external sources that modify the permittivity of the materials constituting the nanoatoms, the substrate, or both.