Enzo Di Fabrizio

Director Enzo Di Fabrizio

Enzo Di Fabrizio is director of the Nanostructures Department at Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT) in Genova since 2009. He is also full professor of Physics at the University of Magna Grecia in Catanzaro (UMG) and director of the Bio and Nano engineering for Medicine-BIONEM Laboratory at UMG.

Doctor in physics at University of Rome “La Sapienza” in 1987, his research in micro and nanotechnology started more than 20 years ago. He spent several years as visiting and associate scientist at the centre of excellence for X-ray lithography (CxrL) at University of Madison-Wisconsin, US. In 2001 he became permanent senior scientist and research director at INFM, where he was responsible for advanced projects on micro and nanofabrication at TASC laboratory and ELETTRA synchroton in Trieste; there he founded the Laboratory for Interdisciplinary Litography (LILIT) for which he designed and built beamlines labs for soft and hard X-ray lithography. In 2004 he became Full Professor of physics at the University of Magna Graecia in Catanzaro and in 2007, 2011, 2012 he has been appointed as visiting Professor at IUSS in Pavia.

His research interests span from nanotechnology and biophotonics (including photonic crystal and plasmonics based devices) to biology. A further interest is dedicated to in situ release of drugs, their spectroscopic control for tumour care - typically based on nanocarriers such as nanoporous silicon - through biophotonic devices based on the SERS effect (surface Enhanced Raman Scattering) or NEAR-INFRA (Near Field Infrared) which are in strong development. These devices have sensitivity close to single molecule. Further scientific effort is dedicated to microfluidic devices and to diffusion in the extracellular matrix. On these scientific themes, Enzo Di Fabrizio coordinates and/or participates in different national and EU projects, and published more than 250 international papers and about 10 international patents.

Di Fabrizio’s selected publications:

1. F. De Angelis, F. Gentile, F. Mecarini, G. Das, M. Moretti, P. Candeloro, M.L. Coluccio, G. Cojoc, A. Accardo, C. Liberale, R.P. Zaccaria, G. Perozziello, L. Tirinato, A. Toma, G. Cuda, R. Cingolani and E. Di Fabrizio, “Breaking the diffusion limit with super-hydrophobic delivery of molecules to plasmonic nanofocusing SERS structures”, Nature Photonics, 5, 682-687 (2011) DOI: 10.1038/ NPHOTON.2011.222
2. F. De Angelis, G. Das, P. Candeloro, M. Patrini, M. Galli, A. Bek, M. Lazzarino, I. Maksymov, C. Liberale, L. C. Andreani, and E. Di Fabrizio, “Nanoscale chemical mapping using three-dimensional adiabatic compression of surface plasmon polaritons”, Nature Nanotechnology, 5, 67-72 (2010) DOI: 10.1038/NNANO.2009.348.
3. F. De Angelis, M. Patrini, G. Das,I. Maksymov, M. Galli, L. Businaro, L. C. Andreani, and E. Di Fabrizio, “A Hybrid Plasmonic-Photonic Nanodevice for Label-Free Detection of a Few Molecules”, Nano Letters, 8 (8), 2321–2327 (2008) DOI: 10.1021/nl801112e
4. C. Liberale, P. Minzioni, F. Bragheri, F. De Angelis, E. Di Fabrizio and I. Cristiani, “Miniaturized all- fibre probe for three dimensional optical trapping and manipulation”, Nature Photonics, 1, 723-727 (2007) DOI:10.1038/nphoton.2007.230
5. E. Di Fabrizio, F. Romanato, M. Gentili, S. Cabrini, J. Susini, and R. Barrett, “High efficiency multilevel Zone Plates for keV X-rays”, Nature, Vol. 401, 28 October (1999) DOI:10.1038/44791