Attività Professionale 30 ottobre 2020 - : professore associato, Sapienza Università di Roma. 1 giugno 2016 - 29 ottobre 2020: professore (W2), RWTH Aachen, Aquisgrana, Germania. Giugno 2015 - maggio 2018: professore aggiunto, Università di Xi’an Jiaotong, Cina. 15 dicembre 2009 - 31 maggio 2016: professore junior, RWTH Aachen, Aquisgrana, Germania. 1 dicembre 2008 - 31 dicembre 2009: ricercatore postdoc, ETH Zurich, USI-Campus, Lugano, Svizzera. 1 settembre 2004 - 30 novembre 2008: ricercatore postdoc, SISSA, Trieste. 1 settembre 2004 - 30 novembre 2006: Visiting Scientist, ICTP, Trieste. Formazione 9 giugno 2004: dottorato in fisica, Università di Amburgo, Germania. 9 febbraio 2000: laurea in fisica, Università di Genova.

He is a recognized expert in computational solid state physics, nanoscience and surface science. His current research has a strong focus on emerging applications in information technology, which hold the promise of overcoming the limitations in terms of speed, scalability and energy consumption of present-day memories and processors. His main interest are phase-change materials (PCMs) for applications in data-storage devices and neuromorphic computing. He has made seminal contributions to the understanding of the physical properties of conventional PCMs and the development of novel PCMs with superior switching kinetics. He was a developer of the Quantum Espresso package, a suite of codes for electronic-structure calculations and materials modeling at the nanoscale based on density functional theory. He also contributed to the fields of two-dimensional materials, topological insulators, transport in monatomic chains, Anderson localization and weak localization, and self-assembled monolayers of organic molecules on metallic surfaces.

Thermally Controlled Charge-Carrier Transitions in Disordered PbSbTe Chalcogenides ADVANCED MATERIALS 2022 Unraveling Crystallization Mechanisms and Electronic Structure of Phase-Change Materials by Large-Scale Ab Initio Simulations ADVANCED MATERIALS 2022 Materials Screening for Disorder-Controlled Chalcogenide Crystals for Phase-Change Memory Applications ADVANCED MATERIALS 2021 Ab initio molecular dynamics and materials design for embedded phase-change memory NPJ COMPUTATIONAL MATERIALS 2021 Absence of Partial Amorphization in GeSbTe Chalcogenide Superlattices PHYSICA STATUS SOLIDI. RAPID RESEARCH LETTERS 2021 Point defects in disordered and stable GeSbTe phase-change materials MATERIALS SCIENCE IN SEMICONDUCTOR PROCESSING 2021 Unraveling the optical contrast in Sb2Te and AgInSbTe phase-change materials JPHYS PHOTONICS 2021 Change in Structure of Amorphous Sb–Te Phase-Change Materials as a Function of Stoichiometry PHYSICA STATUS SOLIDI. RAPID RESEARCH LETTERS 2021 Changes of Structure and Bonding with Thickness in Chalcogenide Thin Films ADVANCED MATERIALS 2020 Discovering Electron-Transfer-Driven Changes in Chemical Bonding in Lead Chalcogenides (PbX, where X = Te, Se, S, O) ADVANCED MATERIALS 2020 Reduction in thermal conductivity of Sb2Te phase-change material by scandium/yttrium doping JOURNAL OF ALLOYS AND COMPOUNDS 2020 In situ study of vacancy disordering in crystalline phase-change materials under electron beam irradiation ACTA MATERIALIA 2020 Bonding similarities and differences between Y-Sb-Te and Sc-Sb-Te phase-change memory materials JOURNAL OF MATERIALS CHEMISTRY. C 2020 Chemical understanding of resistance drift suppression in Ge-Sn-Te phase-change memory materials JOURNAL OF MATERIALS CHEMISTRY. C 2020 Enhancing thermoelectric performance of Sb2Te3 through swapped bilayer defects NANO ENERGY 2020 Phase-change heterostructure enables ultralow noise and drift for memory operation SCIENCE 2019 Femtosecond x-ray diffraction reveals a liquid–liquid phase transition in phase-change materials SCIENCE 2019 Designing crystallization in phase-change materials for universal memory and neuro-inspired computing NATURE REVIEWS. MATERIALS 2019 Layer-Switching Mechanisms in Sb2Te3 PHYSICA STATUS SOLIDI. RAPID RESEARCH LETTERS 2019 Phase-change materials in electronics and photonics MRS BULLETIN 2019