Laser technologies play a key role in enabling advanced solutions across a wide range of scientific and technological domains. This seminar presents the research activities carried out at our company, focusing on the development and application of laser-based techniques in medical, industrial, and cultural heritage contexts.

A central theme of the presentation is the concept of cross-fertilization between research and industry, where methodologies, experimental approaches, and technological solutions developed for a specific application domain are transferred, adapted, and further evolved in others. Through selected case studies, the seminar highlights how challenges arising from real-world applications stimulate fundamental research, while advances in laser science and engineering translate into innovative and reliable industrial solutions.

Microwave sensing provides a powerful platform for non-invasive detection and characterization of materials, liquids, and environmental parameters. My research focuses on advancing this field through the development of metasurface-based microwave sensors that combine functional design, additive manufacturing, and rigorous electromagnetic modeling. By tailoring the geometry and spatial arrangement of subwavelength resonant elements, I create metasurfaces exhibiting sharp and tunable responses in the 1–10 GHz range—frequencies compatible with most commercial microwave systems. These structures function as highly sensitive and robust sensors capable of operating under real-world conditions. I have demonstrated their applicability in diverse contexts, including environmental monitoring, food quality assessment, chemical detection in aqueous media, and mechanical strain sensing. Beyond proof-of-concept demonstrations, my work investigates the fundamental sensing mechanisms linking physical changes in the target environment to measurable shifts in the electromagnetic response. Building upon these results, I developed a portable, metasurface-based microwave sensing device that enables rapid, in-field chemical detection. This research establishes a pathway towards scalable, low-cost, and application-driven microwave sensing technologies, bridging the gap between laboratory innovation and real-world deployment.

Plasmo-photonic sensing platforms offer a compelling pathway toward highly sensitive, miniaturized, and fully integrable bio-chemical detection systems. By combining the strong electromagnetic confinement of plasmonic nanostructures with the low-loss propagation and multiplexing capabilities of dielectric photonic integrated circuits, these hybrid architectures substantially enhance light–matter interaction while preserving scalability and on-chip functionality. In this seminar, I will present the theoretical framework, device design methodologies, and experimental implementation of plasmo-photonic sensors based on both interferometric and resonant configurations, including double-arm (Mach–Zehnder) interferometers, Bragg-assisted cavities, and single-arm bimodal waveguide structures. Emphasis will be placed on engineering sensitivity beyond conventional evanescent-field limitations, analyzing performance trade-offs and optimizing key performance indicators.

In this talk, I will present a multifunctional platform based on 2D-material tunnel junctions for nanoscale light sources, detectors, sensors and memristive devices. I will show that in graphene-based junctions, inelastic electron tunneling couples efficiently to excitons in low-dimensional materials via near-field electromagnetic interactions, without direct charge injection into the optically active layer [1,2]. This Förster-type energy-transfer process enables exciton excitation with efficiencies up to four orders of magnitude higher than photon-mediated coupling [1] and is governed by the local electromagnetic environment and photonic density of states of the junction.

I will show how this platform enables electrically driven electroluminescence from a wide range of emitters, including TMD monolayers, colloidal quantum dots, perovskite nanocrystals, and molecular dyes, through simple integration with graphene-based junctions. Moreover, tunneling-driven energy transfer enables multi-electron processes that allow sub-bandgap exciton generation and nonlinear excitation pathways enhanced by the local density of states [3] and can be extended to exciton-polariton generation in magnetic 2D materials such as CrSBr, leading to polarized electroluminescence [4]. On the detection side, energy-transfer-mediated coupling enhances photodetector performance, boosting the photoresponse of a MoSe₂ junction by more than 18x using a WS₂ antenna layer [5]. Finally, I will briefly discuss about how tunnel junctions coupled to optical antennas can work as self-illuminated plasmonic sensors [6] and how high electric fields in ultrathin 2D tunnel barriers enable controllable non-volatile memristive behavior through defect engineering of MoS₂ [7].

[1] S. Papadopoulos et al., arXiv:2209.11641 (2022).
[2] L. Wang, S. Papadopoulos, F. Iyikanat et al., Nature Materials 22, 1094 (2023).
[3] S. Shan, J. Huang et al., Nano Letters 23, 10908 (2023).
[4] J. D. Ziegler et al., Science Advances 11, eadz6724 (2025).
[5] Y. Koyaz, S. Papadopoulos et al., ACS Photonics 12, 5390–5398 (2025).
[6] J. Lee, Y. Wu, I. Sinev et al., Nature Photonics, 19, 938–945 (2025).
[7] S. Papadopoulos et al., Physical Review Applied, 18, 014018 (2022).

In my talk, after an introduction to the field of quantum optics with cold atomic gases, I will be presenting a number of experiments that demonstrate that the versatility of light-matter interactions in a cold atomic ensemble, and how this enabled us to access seemingly unrelated physical phenomena. These observations range from the creation of a non-Hermitian quantum interface between single atoms and light, to the simultaneous manipulation of the spatiotemporal wavefunctions of single photons, and finally to the induction of fictitious magnetic fields by spatially engineered light for quantum storage.