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Federico Capasso | |
|---|---|
 Capasso in 2016 | |
| Born | 1949 (age 76–77) Rome, Italy |
| Alma mater | University of Rome |
| Known for | Quantum cascade laser;band gap engineering; repulsiveCasimir forces;Wavefront engineering usingplasmonics |
| Awards | IEEE David Sarnoff Award(1993) Newcomb Cleveland Prize(1993) John Price Wetherill Medal(1997) Rank Prize for Optoelectronics(1998) R. W. Wood Prize(2001) Duddell Medal and Prize(2002) Arthur L- Schawlow Prize(2004) Edison Medal(2004) King Faisal Prize(2004) Tomassoni award(2004) Berthold Leibinger Zukunftspreis(2010) SPIE Gold Medal(2013) Balzan Prize(2016) Enrico Fermi Prize(2018) Matteucci Medal(2019) Frederic Ives Medal(2019) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Applied physics |
| Institutions | Fondazione Ugo Bordoni Bell Laboratories Harvard University |
Federico Capasso (born 1949) is an Italian-Americanapplied physicist and is one of the inventors of thequantum cascade laser during his work atBell Laboratories.[1] He is currently on the faculty ofHarvard University.
Federico Capasso received theDoctor of Physics degree,summa cum laude, from theUniversity of Rome, Italy, in 1973 and after doing research infiber optics atFondazione Ugo Bordoni in Rome, joinedBell Labs in 1976.
In 1984, he was made a distinguished member of technical staff and in 1997 a Bell Labs Fellow. In addition to his research activity, Capasso has held several management positions at Bell Labs, including head of the quantum phenomena and device research department and the semiconductor physics research department (1987–2000) and vice president of physical research (2000–2002). He joinedHarvard on 1 January 2003.
He and his collaborators made many wide-ranging contributions to semiconductor devices, pioneering the design technique known asband-structure engineering. He applied it to novel low noisequantum wellavalanche photodiodes,heterojunction transistors, memory devices and lasers. He and his collaborators invented and demonstrated thequantum cascade laser (QCL).[2] Unlike conventional semiconductor lasers, known asdiode lasers, which rely on the band gap of the semiconductor to emit light, the wavelength of QCLs is determined by the energy separation between conduction band quantized states in quantum wells. In 1971 researchers postulated that such an emission process could be used for laser amplification in a superlattice.[3] The QCL wavelength can be tailored across a wide range from the mid-infrared to the far infrared by changing the quantum well thickness. The mature technology of the QCL is now finding commercial applications.[4] QCLs have become the most widely used sources of mid-infrared radiation for chemical sensing and spectroscopy and are commercially available. They operate at temperatures in excess of 100°C and emit up to several watts of power in continuous wave.
Capasso's current research in quantum electronics deals with very high power continuous-wave QCLs, the design of new light sources based on giant optical nonlinearities in quantum wells such as widely tunable sources of terahertz radiation based on difference frequency generation and with plasmonics. He and his group at Harvard have demonstrated a new class of optical antennas and plasmoniccollimators that they have used to design the near-field and far-field of semiconductor lasers, achieving ultrahigh intensity deep subwavelength size laser spots, laser beams with greatly reduced divergence and multibeam lasers. His group showed that suitably designed plasmonic interfaces consisting of optically thin arrays of optical nano-antennas lead to a powerful generalization of the centuries-oldlaws of reflection andrefraction. They form the basis of "flat optics" based onmetasurfaces.
Federico Capasso has made major contributions to the study of quantum electrodynamical forces known as Casimir forces. He used theCasimir effect (the attraction between metal surfaces in vacuum due to its zero point energy) to control the motion ofMicroElectroMechanical Systems (MEMS). He demonstrated novel devices (Casimir actuators and oscillators), setting limits to the scaling of MEMs technology and with his collaborators Jeremy Munday and Adrian Parsegian was the first to measure a repulsive Casimir force.[5]
His honors include membership in theNational Academy of Sciences, theAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences, the European Academy of Sciences and honorary membership in theFranklin Institute. He was also elected a member of theNational Academy of Engineering (1995) for contributions to solid-state electronics and optoelectronics through semiconductor 'bandgap engineering.'
In 2004, he received theChisesi-Tomassoni award for his pioneering work on the quantum-cascade laser. In 2005 he received, jointly withNobel LaureatesFrank Wilczek (MIT) andAnton Zeilinger (University of Vienna), theKing Faisal International Prize for Science for his research on quantum cascade lasers. The citation called him "one of the most creative and influential physicists in the world."[6]
On behalf of theAmerican Physical Society, he was awarded the 2004Arthur L. Schawlow Prize in Laser Science, endowed by theNEC Corporation, for "seminal contributions to the invention and demonstration of the quantum cascade laser and the elucidation of its physics, which bridges quantum electronics, solid-state physics, and materials science."
SPIE, the international society of optics and photonics, selected Capasso to receive the 2013 SPIE Gold Medal,[7] the highest honor the society bestows.
In addition, the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers), the world's largest technical professional organization, named Capasso the recipient of the 2004 IEEEEdison Medal with the following citation, "For a career of highly creative and influential contributions toheterostructure devices and materials."
He is also recipient of theJohn Price Wetherill Medal of theFranklin Institute, theR. W. Wood Prize of theOptical Society of America, theIEEE Lasers and Electro-Optics Society W. Streifer Award for Scientific Achievement, the Materials Research Society Medal, theRank Prize in Optoelectronics (UK), theDuddell Medal and Prize of theInstitute of Physics (UK), TheWillis Lamb Medal for Laser Science and Quantum Optics, theNewcomb Cleveland Prize of theAmerican Association for the Advancement of Science, the 1995Moet Hennessy-Louis Vuitton "Leonardo da Vinci" Prize (France), theWelker Memorial Medal (Germany), theNew York Academy of Sciences Award, theIEEE David Sarnoff Award in Electronics, and the Goff Smith prize of theUniversity of Michigan. In 2010 he received theBerthold Leibinger Zukunftspreis for research in applied laser technology and theJulius Springer Prize in Applied Physics. In 2011 he received theJan Czochralski Medal of the European Materials Research society for his lifetime achievements in Materials Science.
In 2016 he was awarded theBalzan Prize for Applied Photonics "For his pioneering work in the quantum design of new materials with specific electronic and optical features, which led to the realization of a fundamentally new class of laser, the Quantum Cascade Laser; for his major contributions in plasmonics and metamaterials at the forefront of photonics science and technology". He received theMatteucci Medal in 2019 from theItalian National Academy of Sciences for his invention of thequantum cascade laser.[8]
He is a Fellow of theAmerican Physical Society, theInstitute of Physics (UK), theOptical Society of America, theAmerican Association for the Advancement of Science,IEEE andSPIE. He holds honorary doctorates fromLund University, Sweden, theDiderot University (Paris VII), France, theUniversity of Bologna, Italy and theUniversity of Torvergata (Roma II), Italy.
In 2021 Capasso received theFrederic Ives Medal/Jarus W. Quinn Prize from the Optical Society of America for seminal and wide-ranging contributions to optical physics, quantum electronics and nanophotonics.[9]
