Plasmonica was kickstarted in 2013 by a collective of young Italian physicists to provide a forum for researchers in nano-plasmonics – back then still a pioneering endeavor within the Italian landscape. After a decade, this community has thrived and vastly expanded its reach also internationally; its scope has correspondingly broadened to cover many active areas of nanophotonics, including nanoresonators, meta-optics, thermo- and magneto-plasmonics, ultrafast and nonlinear processes, chiral properties, plasmon-enhanced spectroscopies and biological sensing.
Since 2015 Plasmonica is affiliated to the Italian Society of Optics and Photonics (SIOF) as the Plasmonics and Nano-Optics Working Group. Nonetheless, its core mission remains the same: gathering the nanophotonics community in Italy – which is naturally spread over different disciplines such as physics, engineering, chemistry, and biology – as well as facilitating scientific collaborations, personnel exchange, dissemination events (seminars and workshops), and outreach initiatives. Another distinctive feature of this group is its pledge to cater to early-stage researchers, by encouraging their scientific maturation and providing a platform to showcase their research.
These values shape the two principal activities of the group, namely the organization of a yearly workshop and a residential school every two years. These in-person events are conducted in English, to foster the engagement with the wider international community.
Plasmonica organizes every year a Workshop on Plasmonics and Nano-Optics, every time in a different location throughout Italy. It aims at bringing together the Italian nanophotonics community as well as expanding our collaboration network to foreign researchers (mostly Europeans). We make specific effort to provide a platform for showcasing their research to to young scientists, spanning from PhD students to early-stage group leaders.
The topics of the workshop typically include:
CNR IPCF & University of Messina
July 10 - 12, 2024
Aula Magna V. Ricevuto, campus Papardo UniMe
University of Naples "Federico II"
June 19 - 21, 2019
Complesso dei SS. Marcellino e Festo
Italian Institute of Technology (IIT)
CNR - Nanotec and IMM
September 14 - 16, 2017
Convitto Palmieri
Italian Institute of Technology (IIT)
September 14 - 16, 2016
Dipartimento di Scienze per l'Architettura
PLASMONICA has partnered with the European Optical Society (EOS) and the academic publisher EDP Sciences to provide with a dedicated publishing outlet the participants of the 2023 Workshop. They were given the opportunity to submit a Short Communication or a longer Research Article to the PLASMONICA 2023 Topical issue of the Journal of the European Optical Society - Rapid Publications (JEOS:RP), which is the open-access, peer-reviewed outlet of the EOS. Thanks to the generous support of the Italian Society of Optics and Photonics (SIOF) we were able to offer a hefty discount on the standard article processing charges of JEOS:RP. We conceived this editorial initiative to support factually a publishing model made by scientists and for scientist, and we hope with it to contribute fostering an alternative to the mainstream commercial publishers that presently cover most of the scientific publishing ecosystem. All articles are published free to read here: PLASMONICA 2023 - Topical Issue. Guest Editors:
Antonino Foti, CNR-IPCF Messina
Attilio Zilli, Politecnico di Milano
June 3 - 7, 2024
The school is organized by our Steering Committee with the Scientific Directors: Lucio Andreani (University of Pavia), Michele Celebrano (Politecnico di Milano) and Riccardo Sapienza (Imperial College London).
Application deadline March 10 - Form and information here
For enquiries about the scientific aspects of the school, please contact school@plasmonica.it or any other member of the Organizing Committee.
July 4-7, 2022
Politecnico di Torino
June 15 - 18, 2018
Grand Hotel San Michele, Cetraro (Cosenza)
July 10 - 14, 2016
"Palazzone", Cortona (Arezzo)
For further info on the Plasmonica Group activities please e-mail us at:
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You can also contact the Steering Committee of Plasmonica:
Antonino Foti
CNR-Institute for Chemical Physical Processes (IPCF), Messina
Nicoletta Granchi
Dept. of Physics, LENS, University of Florence
Chiara Novara
Dept. of Applied Science and Technology, Politecnico di Torino
Emilija Petronijevic
Dept. Basic and Applied Sciences for Engineering, "Sapienza" University of Rome