Institutions

Scuola Normale Superiore, Lab. NEST

The National Enterprise for nanoScience and nanoTechnology (NEST) is a vibrant italian research center founded by Scuola Normale

Superiore and later joined by Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche and Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia.

Uniting historical tradition of Scuola Normale (established by Napoleone Bonaparte, in Pisa, in 1810) and modern technologies, the center is nowadays one of the most important italian research institute for condensed matter, in particular for low-temperature physics and long wavelength photonics.

THz photonics group, lead by Dr. Alessandro Tredicucci, is active in the topic of emission, detection and control of light at THz frequencies. It is widely recognized for the invention/discovery of the first THz quantum cascade laser, the observation of mid-infrared intersubband polaritons and for many innovative results in THz science and technology. Adding mechanical degree of freedoms to standard THz photonics devices is the team next goal, which will be carried on in the framework of an european ERC Advanced Grant - SoulMan.

California Institute of Technology is one of the most prestigious universities in the USA and the world. Despite its small size, with an average student population of about 3000, it can praise of 31 Nobel prizes among alumni and faculty and it is ranked first in both Science and Engineering according to Times Higher Education 2012 - 2013.Prof. Oskar Painter's group has definitively planted the flag in the field of optomechanics as one of the leading groups. Among their results, they were the first one to report the attainment of active sideband cooling (at optical frequencies) to the ground state of a nanomechanical resonator. Moreover, they were the first one to define the concept of optomechanical crystals and, on this bench, have achieved extraordinary results, such as optomechanically induced transparency, light squeezing and wavelength conversion.

Oskar has been recently appointed as one of the Max Planck Institute For the Science of Light directors and awarded a prestigious Alexander von Humboldt professorship, which will further boost his research activity in the field.