Every year the Ermenegildo Zegna Foundation awards scholarships to deserving students pre-selected by its Italian partner universities. The Foundation's selection committee decided to award a scholarship to Carolina Crosta, PhD student in Materials Science and Nanotechnology, as financial support for her six-month period abroad at the Quantum Photonics Laboratory of the University of Maryland.

Alpha tin (α), also known as gray tin, is a particular crystalline phase of ordinary tin which, under appropriate conditions, may exhibit extraordinary electronic properties. For example, the mechanical compression exerted by the lattice of specific substrates stabilizes the electron structure of a topological Dirac semimetal, similar to the one observed in graphene. This unusual quantum phase of matter is characterized by intriguing properties.

Batteries are key elements in the energy transition and the digitalization of society. As energy demand grows for portable devices, mobility, and stationary applications, the need for increasingly diverse technologies—each designed to meet specific needs such as energy density, stability, flexibility, environmental sustainability, and integration into the final application while keeping high safety standards. The design of devices able to meet all these criteria represent a challenge, claiming for the development of new strategies, materials, and combination of materials.

Plastics are essential in daily life but pose significant environmental risks due to slow degradation and pollution, especially in water bodies. Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS) used in products like automotive parts and electronics, is currently grouped with other plastics that lack dedicated recycling programs. However, upcoming regulatory changes in Europe aim to improve its recycling.

Nanoindentation is a standard technique usually devoted to characterize the mechanical properties of materials. However, the high and localized pressure applied by nanoindentation allows to reach critical condition for phase transition in many materials, thus obtaining metastable phases that often are maintained upon pressure release.