Research interests

I am a researcher at the Institute of Materials for Electronics and Magnetism in Trento (laboratory established through a joint effort of the Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche and the Fondazione Bruno Kessler).

My interests range from precision measurements (low noise amplifiers, superconducting devices, design and modeling of mechanical resonators) to fundamental physics experiments (gravitational wave detectors, non-equilibrium properties of thermal noise).

I set up many experiments in cryogenic environments, first studying properties of superfluid and superconductors, then using low temperatures to reduce electrical and mechanical thermal noise in sensitive instrumentations. In the last 10 years I contributed to the realization of a cryogenic gravitational wave detector, currently searching for galactic astrophysical events, and I am now facing the challenges of the new generation of detectors.

Highlights

November 2011 - The workshop Squeezed light experiments in Italy and future applications to gravitational wave detectors   will take place on 22 November 2011 in Trento.

November 2010 - We observed the effect of correlations between the amplifier noise sources in a feedback cooled LC electrical resonator. The work Active cooling of an audio-frequency electrical resonator to microkelvin temperatures has been published on the European Physics Letters.

July 2009 - We demonstrated that a feedback cooled system departs from equilibrium in a statistical mechanics perspective. The work Nonequilibrium steady state fluctuations in actively cooled resonators has been published on the Physical Review Letters.

December 2008 - Our research on feedback cooling   has been selected as one the Top ten physics stories of the year 2008 by editors and science writers at the American Institute of Physics and the American Physical Society.

July 2008 - The paper Feedback cooling of a massive mechanical resonator to submillikelvin temperature, published on the Physical Review Letters, has been selected for a Viewpoint on the American Physical Society publication "Physics".

December 2007 - The project Rarenoise has been recommended for funding by the European Research Council.

June 2006 - Our R&D proposal for a gravitational wave detector based on the DUAL principle has been approved by Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare.

May 2005 - The AURIGA detector is working at its design performances after the upgrade of the low frequency suspensions.