My research is focused on photonics, a field related to the understanding and exploitation of light-matter interactions. In particular, my interests are oriented towards the control of nonlinear effects, occurring in the presence of intense optical powers typically obtained by the spatial or temporal confinement of light (using e.g. optical waveguides, ultrashort pulses, extremely focused beams, or via resonant cavity enhancement).

For instance, ultrashort light pulses of few femtoseconds duration (~ 10^-15 s) with instantaneous powers that can exceed several tens gigawatts (> 10⁹ W) can be generated and guided within various photonic structures over a very small surface area (only few µm² cross section). Such optical pulses can therefore induce modifications in the guiding material itself, in turn modifying the way the pulses propagate in the material. Such interactions are at the basis of numerous fundamental processes such as nonlinear frequency conversion and scattering, as well as the building blocks of widespread applications spanning from laser science and metrology to advanced sensing and biomedical imaging techniques.

In this framework, my expertize is predominantly numerical and experimental, in areas of photonics covering fundamental aspects of nonlinear science and involving a broad range of applications such as laser sources development, signal processing, metrology, imaging, optical quantum states generation and ultrafast optical characterization.

Below, you can find an overview of my work, held within an active network of collaborators to whom I am scientifically indebted. Note that for clarity, the works summarized here is divided in three categories, associated with the main platforms at the basis of my activities (i.e. guided pulse propagation, resonant optical cavities and free-space beam propagation).