Covid-19: safety guidelines for students
The University of Milano-Bicocca is open to students for the 2020/21 academic year, and looks forward to welcoming all new and continuing students for the first semester.
Department of Materials Science
Ultrafast detection of gamma-rays with highly luminous scintillating nanocomposites
Scintillator materials emit pulses of light when exposed to ionising radiation or high-energy charged particles. Today, brighter fast scintillators are needed for advanced applications to acquire data with high signal-to-noise ratio in short time windows, such as in time-of-flight positron emission tomography (ToF-PET) imaging for cancer.
Thermal properties of silicene on silver and stanene/silver
Silicene, a two-dimensional form of silicon, has attracted significant interest for its potential in advanced technologies. Like graphene, it has a unique structure that allows electrons to move in interesting ways, making it highly compatible with existing semiconductor technologies. However, despite progress in creating and working with silicene, challenges remain—especially in finding suitable surfaces (substrates) to support its structure.
Identify and manipulate the Electro-Conductive Zones for improving soil and groundwater microbial-electro-remediation
Electrochemistry combined with microbial life in the so called microbial bioelectrochemical systems can certainly being a power tool for degrading organics compounds in contaminated soils and transforming various pollutants into harmless compounds. In fact, the microbial degradation of pollutants can be enhanced when combined with electrochemical methods. The application of external potentials can certainly enhance the degradation shortening the operational time.
MOdeling and DEsign of functional Materials (MODEM)
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Our group is dedicated to the modelling and design of innovative quantum materials that exhibit promising functionalities (i.e. magnetism, ferroelectricity, multiferroicity, coupled spin/charge/orbital/lattice degrees of freedom), of interest for next-generation low-power spintronic devices.
At the heart of our research lies the use of first-principles simulations within density functional theory, enabling us to delve deeply into the structural, electronic, ferroelectric and magnetic properties of these materials. Complementing these ab-initio investigations, we frequently employ model Hamiltonian approaches and rigorous symmetry analysis to enrich and broaden our understanding.
Our main current focus is modelling two-dimensional magnets (i.e. NiI2, CrI3, CrGeTe3), atomically-thin layers that exhibit long-range magnetism and spin-orbit-induced phenomena. Another key area of interest lies in oxide-based perovskites, including manganites, particularly those characterized by a strong coupling between spin and dipolar degrees of freedom, leading to phenomena such as multiferroicity and magnetoelectricity.
We study the microscopic origin of complex spin textures (i.e. non-collinear, non-coplanar, helical, skyrmions, etc) and the possible coexistence of magnetic order with exotic phenomena, such as ferroelectricity, charge-order, k-dependent spin-splitting in the electronic structure of the compounds of interest.
The coexistence of multiple orders enhances the multifunctional capabilities of materials, enabling, for instance, the manipulation of spin degrees of freedom through the application of an electric field, one of the grand-challenges in spintronics.
Gruppo di ricerca
Prof. Silvia Picozzi