- EDUCATION
1998 PhD at the Light Scattering Laboratory, Dept. of Physics, University of L’Aquila, Italy
Title of the Thesis: ‘Low and high frequency density fluctuations in glass-formers: the case of o-terphenyl’. Thesis advisor: prof. G. Ruocco.
1993 Master Degree, summa cum laude
Dept. of Physics, University of Napoli, Italy
- CURRENT POSITIONS
2020 – Full professor of Experimental Condensed Matter Physics
Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, University of Padova, Italy
2017 – Visiting Scientist
LCLS, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Stanford University, CA (USA)
2018 – Visiting Scientist
RIKEN Spring-8 Centre, Kouto (JP)
- PREVIOUS POSITIONS
2012 – 2020 Full professor of Experimental Condensed Matter Physics
Dept. of Physics, University of Trento, I
1999 – 2013 Beamline Scientist
Experiment Division, European Synchrotron Radiation Facility, Grenoble, F
2009 – 2013 Professor
University “J. Fourier”, Grenoble, F
1998 – 1999 Fixed-term Researcher
National Institute for the Structure of Matter (INFM), L’Aquila, I
- INSTITUTIONAL RESPONSIBILITIES (most relevant)
2018 – 2020 Head, Physics Dept., University of Trento, I
2013 – 2020 Responsible of the Laboratory ‘Structure and Dynamics of Complex Systems’ (SDSC) and of the related research group, Physics Dept., University of Trento, I
2014 – 2018 Deputy Head, Physics Dept., University of Trento, I
2014 – 2018 Coordinator of the teaching activities, Physics Dept., University of Trento, I
2010 – 2013 Responsible Scientist of the ID20 Beamline and of the related group, ESRF, Grenoble (F)
2001 – 2010 Responsible Scientist of the ID16 Beamline and of the related group, ESRF, Grenoble (F)
1999 – 2001 Second Scientist of the ID16 Beamline, ESRF, Grenoble (F)
- TEACHING ACTIVITIES (most relevant)
2021 – Professor – General Physics I, Physics and Astronomy Dept., University of Padova, I
2021 – Professor – Physics of Disordered Materials, Chemistry Dept., University of Padova, I
2018 – 2020 Professor – Structure of Matter, Physics Dept., University of Trento, I
2016 – 2020 Professor – Physics of Disordered Systems, Physics Dept., University of Trento, I
2013 – 2017 Professor – Mechanics, Engineering Dept., University of Trento, I
2014 – 2015 Professor – Laboratory of Condensed Matter, Physics Dept., University of Trento, I
2009 – 2012 Professor – Physics by Synchrotron Radiation, University J. Fourier, Grenoble, F
2009 Professor – Inelastic X-ray scattering, University of Catalunya, Barcelona, E
- SUPERVISION OF GRADUATE STUDENTS AND POSTDOCTORAL FELLOWS
1999 – 15 Postdocs (2 ongoing)/ 11 PhD Students (1 ongoing)/ 14 Master Students
PhD students that got prominent positions: S. Falconi (PhD 2003), Technical Executive Manager, Ministry of Interior, Roma (I); A. Monaco (PhD 2006), Lecturer/Assistant Professor in Financial Mathematics at the University College Dublin (IR); B. Ruta (PhD 2010), CR1 researcher at the CNRS, Lyon (F), 2020 CNRS bronze medal and ERC Starting grant (2020-…); T. Pylkkӓnen (PhD 2011), Research Manager at Hitachi high-tech analytical Science, Espoo (FI).
Post-docs that got prominent positions: G. Vankó, project leader physicist at the Wigner Research Centre for Physics, Budapest (H), ERC Starting grant (2010-2015) and 2020 Physics Prize from the Hungarian Academy of Sciences; P. Giura, researcher at the Sorbonne Université, Paris (F); G. Baldi, Associate Professor at the University of Trento; S. Huotari, Full Professor at the University of Helsinki; V. Giordano, CR1 researcher at the CNRS, Lyon (F); L. Simonelli, responsible of the beamline CLAESS at the ALBA Light Source, Barcelona (E); M. Moretti, Associate Professor at the Politecnico di Milano (I).
I am currently supervising a Marie-Curie fellow (Dr. P. Sun, MSCA-2020).
- ORGANISATION OF SCIENTIFIC MEETINGS (most recent)
2019 Chair, XV International Workshop on Complex Systems, Andalo, I (~100 participants)
2017 President of the Structure of Matter Section, 103rd National Congress of the Italian Society of Physics (SIF), Trento, I (~600 participants in total over 7 Sections)
2015 Co-chair, XXIII Meeting of the Italian Synchrotron Radiation Society (SILS), Trento, I (~100 participants)
2015 Chair, XIV International Workshop on Complex Systems, Fai della Paganella, I (~100 participants)
- REVIEWING ACTIVITIES
2018 – Chairman of the ‘Materials Imaging and Dynamics’ (MID) Proposal Review Panel for the European X-ray Free Electron Laser, Hamburg, D
2015 – Member of the Proposal Review Committee of the free electron laser FERMI, Trieste, I
2004 – 2016 Member of the Proposal Review Committee of the synchrotron facility ELETTRA, Trieste, I
2013 – 2015 Member of the Proposal Review Committee for the free electron laser LCLS, SLAC National Laboratory, Stanford University, CA, USA
2012 – 2014 Member of the Proposal Review Committee for the neutron facility ISIS, Oxford, UK
2007 – 2010 Member of the Proposal Review Committee for the synchrotron facility Soleil, Paris, F
Referee for several journals including: Nature, Nature Physics, Nature Communications, Phys. Rev. Lett., Phys. Rev. B and E, J. Chem. Phys., J. Phys.: Condens. Matter, Phil. Mag., J. Non Cryst. Solids, J. Synchrotron Radiat.
- RESEARCH ACHIEVEMENTS (2011-2021)
(numbers in square brackets refer to the publications list below).
During my career, I aimed at big scientific challenges requiring novel, sophisticated experiments. In my last years at the ESRF I, together with my team, designed and built a new laboratory (www.esrf.eu/UsersAndScience/Experiments/DynExtrCond/ID20) dedicated to inelastic X-ray scattering from electronic excitations, see e.g. [6]. This 5 M€ project – for which I was PI and project manager – was selected in 2010 in a competitive call as one of the seven projects (over the 38 presented) financed within the ESRF phase-1 upgrade. Among other tasks, I designed the X-ray optics required for the beamline (mirrors, monochromators, crystal analyzers) and the spectrometers for the experiments. These developments pushed me to look at the surprising electronic and magnetic properties of some 4f and 5d crystalline compounds [3, 4]. At the same time, I kept part of my scientific focus on the study of disordered materials using a technique (high-resolution inelastic X-ray scattering) that I had optimized during the preceding 15 years. Among my main achievements in the field of disordered materials I mention: i) the recognition of the role of the short-range order in the high-frequency dynamics of liquids and glasses [1] and ii) the observation of Rayleigh scattering of acoustic waves from microscopic density fluctuations in glasses [2, 5].
In the years 2013-20 at the University of Trento, I built a group dedicated to the study of disordered materials, including liquids, glasses and soft matter. In particular, I built a laboratory for dynamic light scattering experiments to study the slow atomic dynamics in liquids and soft matter (complexsystems.physics.unitn.it). In 2020 I moved to the University of Padova where I am engaged to build up a new laboratory and a new group dedicated to the investigation of the structure and dynamics of disordered systems (disorderedsystems.dfa.unipd.it).
Part of my experimental activity remains focused at synchrotron and free-electron-laser centers, where beamtime is granted upon successful evaluation of scientific proposals. I was PI or collaborator in more than 50 such experiments since 2013.
Among my research achievements since I moved back to Italy, I mention the characterization of the stress field: i) trapped in colloidal glasses after the preparation phase [8] and ii) induced in oxide glasses by X-ray irradiation [7] by means of X-ray photon correlation spectroscopy; the development of a two-state model for the description of the microscopic dynamics in water at supercritical conditions [9]; and the characterization of a quasi-local relaxation universally found in glasses (Johari-Goldstein process) by means of nuclear g-resonance time-domain interferometry [10].
[1] V.M. Giordano and G. Monaco, High-frequency dynamics and short-range order of liquid gallium from inelastic x-ray scattering under pressure, Phys. Rev. B84, 052201 (2011).
[2] G. Baldi, M. Zanatta, E. Gilioli, V. Milman, K. Refson, B. Wehinger, B. Winkler, A. Fontana and G. Monaco, Emergence of crystal-like atomic dynamics in glasses at the nanometer scale, Phys. Rev. Lett. 110, 185503 (2013).
[3] T. Mazet, D. Malterre, M. François, C. Dallera, M. Grioni and G. Monaco, Nonpareil Yb Behavior in YbMn6Ge6-xSnx, Phys. Rev. Lett. 111, 096402 (2013).
[4] M. Moretti Sala, S. Boseggia, D.F. McMorrow and G. Monaco, Resonant X-Ray Scattering and the jeff = 1/2 Electronic Ground State in Iridate Perovskites, Phys. Rev. Lett. 112, 026403 (2014).
[5] G. Baldi, V.M. Giordano, B. Ruta, R. Dal Maschio, A. Fontana and G. Monaco, Anharmonic damping of terahertz acoustic waves in a network glass and its effect on the density of vibrational states, Phys. Rev. Lett. 112, 125502 (2014).
[6] S. Huotari, C.J. Sahle, C. Henriquet, A. Al-Zein, K. Martel, L. Simonelli, R. Verbeni, H. Gonzalez, M.-C. Lagier, C. Ponchut, M. Moretti Sala, M. Krisch and G. Monaco, A large-solid-angle X-ray Raman scattering spectrometer at ID20 of the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility, J. Synchrotron Radiat. 24, 521 (2017).
[7] G. Pintori, G. Baldi, B. Ruta and G. Monaco, Relaxation dynamics induced in glasses by the absorption of hard X-ray photons, Phys. Rev. B 99, 224206 (2019).
[8] F. Dallari, A. Martinelli, F. Caporaletti, M. Sprung, G. Grübel and G. Monaco, Microscopic pathways for stress relaxation in repulsive colloidal glasses, Sci. Adv. 6, 2982 (2020).
[9] P. Sun, J.B. Hastings, D. Ishikawa, A.Q.R. Baron and G. Monaco, Two-component dynamics and the liquidlike to gaslike crossover in supercritical water, Phys. Rev. Lett. 125, 256001 (2020).
[10] F. Caporaletti, S. Capaccioli, S. Valenti, M. Mikolasek, A.I. Chumakov and G. Monaco, Experimental evidence of mosaic structure in strongly supercooled molecular liquids, Nat. Commun. 12, 1867 (2021).
- PUBLICATIONS
I have published 251 papers/review articles/book chapters during my career.
Researcher unique identifier(s), ORCID: 0000-0003-2497-6422
SCOPUS author ID: 10040033000
Web of Science Researcher ID: AAU-2947-2021
Scholar Google: scholar.google.it/citations?user=JwLHPecAAAAJ&hl=it
- ORAL PRESENTATIONS
During my career, I have presented my research results at conferences/workshops in 71 talks and at international schools in 12 lectures.
- EDITORIAL ACTIVITY
Editor of a special issue of the Philosophical Magazine (volume 96, 2016) which collects a selection of works presented at the XIV International Workshop on Complex Systems, Fai della Paganella (Italy, 2015).
Editor of a special issue of the Philosophical Magazine (volume 100, 2020) which collects a selection of works presented at the XV International Workshop on Complex Systems, Andalo (Italy, 2019).