Condensed Matter and Functional Materials

Research in Condensed Matter and Material Science has a long tradition in Parma, dating back to the years 60s of last century. The Institute of Physics, then Department, contributed significantly to the development of the field in Italy, and its members founded the CNR MASPEC Institute, now IMEM, one of the strongest Applied Physics CNR institutes nowadays. In present days this original tradition is developed along four main lines, employing a total 17 faculty members (Professors and Research Associates).

Multifunctional magnetic and superconductive materials

Magnets are ubiquitous in modern life: they are key components in sensors, actuators, motors, appliances, computers, cars. PaRMa is the home of the SMFI Dept. expertise in magnetism. Theorists, material scientists and experimental physicists join efforts on the following main topics.

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Semiconductor Physics and Technology

In the area of condensed matter physics, semiconducting materials have been a major subject of investigation for the past six decades. The discovery of new semiconductors as well...

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Vibrational Spectroscopies and Optics

Vibrations are fingerprints of molecules and of solid state compounds. These fingerprints tell us about the material properties, in many diverse situations. Our group exploits...

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Carbon based Nanostructured Materials

Carbon is a building block of organic chemistry, and biological tissues as well. These are the realm of chemistry and life sciences. Diamond has long been the prototype hard...

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Quantum computation

Quantum computers will exploit quintessential quantum mechanical phenomena like superposition states and entanglement to outperform even the best conceivable classical supercomputer. We study possible physical implementations of the qubits, the basic units of a quantum computer, and we develop system-specific quantum algorithms. We also use the prototype IBM quantum computers.

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