Качалли Франко

Franco Cacialli moved to the Free University of Bolzano-Bozen on 10/10/2022. Previously, he has been Professor of Physics at the Department of Physics and Astronomy at UCL and the London Centre for Nanotechnology (LCN, www.london-nano.ucl.ac.uk). His research interests focus on the physics and application of advanced functional materials (primarily organic semiconductors - OS) to photovoltaic and light-emitting diodes, as well as to field-effect transistors, with particular attention being dedicated to the properties of the electrode-semiconductors interface, an issue of fundamental importance in virtually all device applications. Research interests also include supramolecular architectures for the control and tailoring of intermolecular interactions, and thus of OS photophysics. Past interests also include high-resolution nanolithography by means of the scanning near-field optical microscope (SNOM) or the scanning thermal microscope (SThM). He received his degree and PhD in Electronic Engineering from the University of Pisa, and after post-doctoral work at Cambridge has been a Royal Society University Research Fellow in the period 1996-2004, first at Cambridge until 2001, then at UCL, where he became Professor of Physics in 2005. A former member of the Advisory Board of "Materials Today", of the "Journal of Physics C: Condensed Matter", and of "Advanced Materials Technologies", and a current member of the EPSRC Peer Review College, he (co)authored over 290 publications and 6 patents. Franco has coordinated an 11-partner Marie-Curie Research Training Network (RTN) dedicated to investigation of threaded molecular wires (THREADed Molecular wIres as supramoLecularly engineered muLtifunctional materials – THREADMILL) and a European Training Network (ETN) (SupramolecularlY eNgineered arCHitectures for optoelectRonics and photONICS – SYNCHRONICS, https://synchronics-msca.eu). He is a Fellow of the Institute of Physics (FinstP, since 2001), and of the American Physical Society (since 2009), a recipient of a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award (2015-2019), and has been a co-director of the London Institute for Advanced Light Technologies (http://london-light.org, 2018-2022). Please see https://www.ucl.ac.uk/cmmp/cmmp-people/group-pages/organic-semiconductors for further details about publications and research.