Mario Rocca

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Mario Agostino Rocca (born in Genoa, Italy, on 27 June 1956) is an Italian experimental physicist. His main contributions are on the experimental measurement of surface phonon spectra, conventional and acoustic surface plasmon dispersion, and gas surface interaction.

Contents

Career

Mario Rocca graduated in physics in 1981 at the University of Genoa. For his PhD studies, he moved to the Forschungzentrum Jülich and became Doctor Rerum Naturae at the Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule Aachen (RWTH) in 1985 under the supervision of Harald Ibach with a thesis on surface phonon anomalies induced by adsorption of gases. He was a research staff member at the University of Genoa from 1984 to 1992, when he became associate professor. Since 2001, Rocca has been holding the position of full professor of Condensed matter physics. Between 2002 and 2005 he was Deputy Director of the Department of Physics of the University of Genoa. He is vice-chair of the Surface Science Division of the International Union for Vacuum Science, Technique, and Application (IUVSTA) and member of the scientific board of the Italian Union of Scientists for Disarmament. He was editor of Surface Science Reports until 2018, currently he is editor of Applied Surface Science and of Springer Series in Surface Science. [1] He directs the International Summer School on Science Management for Scientists and Engineers. [2] According to a PLOS Biology, Mario Rocca is among the 100.000 top-scientists of the world. [3]

Selected publications

Related Research Articles

The thermal conductivity of a material is a measure of its ability to conduct heat. It is commonly denoted by , , or and is measured in W·m−1·K−1.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Surface science</span> Study of physical and chemical phenomena that occur at the interface of two phases

Surface science is the study of physical and chemical phenomena that occur at the interface of two phases, including solid–liquid interfaces, solid–gas interfaces, solid–vacuum interfaces, and liquid–gas interfaces. It includes the fields of surface chemistry and surface physics. Some related practical applications are classed as surface engineering. The science encompasses concepts such as heterogeneous catalysis, semiconductor device fabrication, fuel cells, self-assembled monolayers, and adhesives. Surface science is closely related to interface and colloid science. Interfacial chemistry and physics are common subjects for both. The methods are different. In addition, interface and colloid science studies macroscopic phenomena that occur in heterogeneous systems due to peculiarities of interfaces.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Plasmon</span> Quasiparticle of charge oscillations in condensed matter

In physics, a plasmon is a quantum of plasma oscillation. Just as light consists of photons, the plasma oscillation consists of plasmons. The plasmon can be considered as a quasiparticle since it arises from the quantization of plasma oscillations, just like phonons are quantizations of mechanical vibrations. Thus, plasmons are collective oscillations of the free electron gas density. For example, at optical frequencies, plasmons can couple with a photon to create another quasiparticle called a plasmon polariton.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Polariton</span> Quasiparticles arising from EM wave coupling

In physics, polaritons are quasiparticles resulting from strong coupling of electromagnetic waves with an electric or magnetic dipole-carrying excitation. They are an expression of the common quantum phenomenon known as level repulsion, also known as the avoided crossing principle. Polaritons describe the crossing of the dispersion of light with any interacting resonance. To this extent polaritons can also be thought of as the new normal modes of a given material or structure arising from the strong coupling of the bare modes, which are the photon and the dipolar oscillation. The polariton is a bosonic quasiparticle, and should not be confused with the polaron, which is an electron plus an attached phonon cloud.

In condensed matter physics, a Cooper pair or BCS pair is a pair of electrons bound together at low temperatures in a certain manner first described in 1956 by American physicist Leon Cooper.

In condensed matter physics, a quasiparticle is a concept used to describe a collective behavior of a group of particles that can be treated as if they were a single particle. Formally, quasiparticles and collective excitations are closely related phenomena that arise when a microscopically complicated system such as a solid behaves as if it contained different weakly interacting particles in vacuum.

Phaedon Avouris is a Greek chemical physicist and materials scientist. He is an IBM Fellow and was formerly the group leader for Nanometer Scale Science and Technology at the Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, New York.

David Pines was a US physicist recognized for his work in quantum many-body systems in condensed matter and nuclear physics. With his advisor David Bohm, he contributed to the understanding of electron interactions in metals. Bohm and Pines introduced the plasmon, the quantum of electron density oscillations in metals. They also pioneered the use of the random phase approximation. His work with John Bardeen on electron-phonon interactions led to the development of the BCS theory of superconductivity. Pines also extended BCS theory to nuclear physics to explain stability of isotopes with even and odd numbers of nucleons. He also used the theory of superfluidity to explain the glitches in neutron stars.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Surface plasmon</span>

Surface plasmons (SPs) are coherent delocalized electron oscillations that exist at the interface between any two materials where the real part of the dielectric function changes sign across the interface. SPs have lower energy than bulk plasmons which quantise the longitudinal electron oscillations about positive ion cores within the bulk of an electron gas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vladimir Shalaev</span> American optical physicist

Vladimir (Vlad) M. Shalaev is a Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Scientific Director for Nanophotonics at Birck Nanotechnology Center, Purdue University.

Interfacial thermal resistance, also known as thermal boundary resistance, or Kapitza resistance, is a measure of resistance to thermal flow at the interface between two materials. While these terms may be used interchangeably, Kapitza resistance technically refers to an atomically perfect, flat interface whereas thermal boundary resistance is a more broad term. This thermal resistance differs from contact resistance because it exists even at atomically perfect interfaces. Owing to differences in electronic and vibrational properties in different materials, when an energy carrier attempts to traverse the interface, it will scatter at the interface. The probability of transmission after scattering will depend on the available energy states on side 1 and side 2 of the interface.

A plasmonic-enhanced solar cell, commonly referred to simply as plasmonic solar cell, is a type of solar cell that converts light into electricity with the assistance of plasmons, but where the photovoltaic effect occurs in another material.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alexander A. Balandin</span> American electrical engineer

Alexander A. Balandin is an electrical engineer, solid-state physicist, and materials scientist best known for the experimental discovery of unique thermal properties of graphene and their theoretical explanation; studies of phonons in nanostructures and low-dimensional materials, which led to the development of the field of phonon engineering; investigation of low-frequency electronic noise in materials and devices; and demonstration of the first charge-density-wave quantum devices operating at room temperature.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Martin Aeschlimann</span> Swiss professor of physics

Martin Aeschlimann is a Swiss physicist and professor in the physics department of the University of Kaiserslautern. Since 2008 he is the spokesman of the State Research Center for Optics and Material Sciences (OPTIMAS).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ajay K. Sood</span> Indian physicist (born 1951)

Ajay Kumar Sood is an Indian physicist and researcher currently serving as the 4th Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pedro Miguel Etxenike</span> Basque physicist and former Minister of Education of the Basque Autonomous Community

Pedro Miguel Etxenike Landiribar, also known as Pedro Miguel Echenique, is a theoretical solid-state physicist, Professor of Condensed Matter Physics at the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), and former minister of the Basque Autonomous Community.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elias Burstein</span> American physicist

Elias Burstein was an American experimental condensed matter physicist whose active career in science spanned seven decades. He is known for his pioneering fundamental research in the optical physics of solids; for writing and editing hundreds of articles and other publications; for bringing together scientists from around the world in international meetings, conferences, and symposia; and for training and mentoring dozens of younger physicists.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eleftherios Economou</span>

Eleftherios Ν. Economou is a Greek theoretical physicist and professor emeritus at the department of physics of the University of Crete. He has contributed to various areas of theoretical condensed matter physics, starting with the study of surface plasmons during his thesis in 1969.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yurii G. Naidyuk</span> Ukrainian physicist

Yurii Georgiyovych Naidyuk is a Ukrainian physicist, Director of the B.I. Verkin Institute for Low Temperature Physics and Engineering of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. He is a corresponding member of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (NASU). He has been awarded the State Prize of Ukraine in Science and Technology and the B. I. Verkin Prize of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. He is the editor-in-chief of the academic journal Low Temperature Physics.

In condensed matter physics, Pines' demon or, simply demon is a collective excitation of electrons which corresponds to electrons in different energy bands moving out of phase with each other. Equivalently, a demon corresponds to counter-propagating currents of electrons from different bands. Named after David Pines, who coined the term in 1956, demons are quantum mechanical excited states of a material belonging to a broader class of exotic collective excitations, such as the magnon, phason, or exciton. Pines' demon was first experimentally observed in 2023 by A. A. Husain et al. within the transition-metal oxide distrontium ruthenate (Sr2RuO4).

References

  1. "Bootstrap - Prebuilt Layout". www.fisica.unige.it. Retrieved 2019-11-24.
  2. 911gdvlZL0EEz. "Home". SoSMSE. Retrieved 2019-11-24.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  3. Ioannidis, John P. A.; Baas, Jeroen; Klavans, Richard; Boyack, Kevin W. (2019-08-12). "A standardized citation metrics author database annotated for scientific field". PLOS Biology. 17 (8): e3000384. doi: 10.1371/journal.pbio.3000384 . ISSN   1545-7885. PMC   6699798 . PMID   31404057.