Dr. Vittorio M.N. Passaro

Dr. Vittorio M.N. Passaro received his five-years Laurea degree in Electronic Engineering (cum laude) from University of Bari, Italy, in 1988 and his Ph.D. degree in Electronic Engineering, curriculum Optoelectronics, from Politecnico di Bari in 1992. From May 1991 to September 2000 he was research assistant of Electronics at Politecnico di Bari. Since October 2000, he joined Politecnico di Bari as an Associate Professor of Electronic Technologies and Photonics and, since February 2014 he is qualified for full professorship in the general area of “Electronics”.

Since 1988 his research interests have been focused on several theoretical and experimental aspects of optoelectronic and photonic devices as well as Integrated Optics. He has published several contributions in modeling, design and simulation of integrated optical devices and circuits for optical signal processing, telecommunications and sensing applications, by considering a number of materials and technologies, including ferroelectric (LiNbO3, LiTaO3, KTP) and semiconductors (silicon and compounds and other group IV materials, III-V alloy compounds). He has developed some numerical techniques, such as Floquet-Bloch theory for modelling of guided-wave diffraction gratings in photonic components. He has been also involved in LiNbO3 proton exchange technologies, in particular on the understanding of the physicalchemical mechanisms occurring during the formation of lithium niobate optical waveguides, as well as the relationships with their optical properties. Currently, he is mainly involved in Group IV Photonics (silicon-on-insulator, silicon compounds), with specific contributions in modelling of Raman and Brillouin effects in SOI waveguides, linear and non linear silicon optical integrated sensors for chemical (liquid, gas) and physical (electric field, angular velocity) applications, SOI modulators, slot SOI waveguides optimized for sensing, grating-assisted directional couplers between fibres and thin silicon waveguides, ring resonators and other resonant optical microcavities, quantum devices, fiber optic sensors and passive optical networks.

Since 2004 he has formed and leads the Photonics Research Group, based at Department of Electrical and Information Engineering, Politecnico di Bari, Italy (URL: http://dee.poliba.it/photonicsgroup). The group has established prestigious collaborations with several international research groups from University of Surrey, University of Southampton, University of Glasgow, Russian Academy of Sciences, University of Trento, Universidad Politecnica de Valencia, University of Massachusetts at Boston, National Institute of Optics at Pozzuoli, National Institute of Nuclear Physics at Bari.

Prof. Passaro is author or co-author of more than 340 papers published in high impact international journals (among them, one by Nature Photonics, 4 by Scientific Reports, 27 by IEEE journals, 31 by OSA journals), and international conference proceedings. He is the holder of two international patents and the Editor of five scientific books (one by Springer, one by NOVA, one by InTech, one by Aracne) and one teaching book.

He has been invited several times to give talks in Universities and Research Centres, as well as to publish his research activities. His works have been largely cited in the specialized literature, see Google Scholar at http://scholar.google.it/citations?user=C0WU2WwAAAAJ&hl=it. Scopus database includes more than 220 documents, more than 2200 citations and h-index 25.

Since 1991 he has extensive teaching experience in several academic courses, including Digital Electronics, Analog Electronics, Electronic Technologies, Photonics, Basics of Optoelectronics, Photonic Devices and Sensors. He has served as supervisor for a very large number of final thesis for both undergraduate and postgraduate students in the fields of electronic, optoelectronic and photonic technologies, as well as for Ph.D. thesis, both internal (Politecnico di Bari) and abroad (University of Surrey). He has been also invited as an external referee of PhD thesis from Politecnico di Milano, University of Trento, McQuarie University, India Institute of Science, University of British Columbia.

Since 2012 Prof. Passaro is the coordinator of Master degree in Electronics Engineering.

Since 2015 to 2018 he has been the coordinator of Doctoral Program in Electrical and Information Engineering.

SIGNIFICANT PROFESSIONAL PERFORMANCE BY V.M.N. PASSARO

The most significant aspects of Prof. Passaro’s research activity are related with the development of modelling and numerical techniques for the design and demonstration of complex optical signal processors, guided-wave devices for telecommunications systems, integrated optical sensors, fiber optic sensors and non linear photonic devices in silicon technology and other group IV materials, as well as experiments in lithium niobate proton exchange (PE) technology. Specific contributions include the applications of Floquet-Bloch theory to grating-assisted directional couplers, modelling and design of resonant microcavities, original design of integrated optical circuits for data classification and identification in remote sensing, design of very efficient fibres-SOI thin waveguides couplers, optimal design of slot waveguides for homogeneous sensing, design of guided-wave optical sensors for angular velocity measurements, and biochemical and biomedical applications, as well as modelling and design of Raman-based photonic devices (lasing and amplification, logic gates), Brillouin lasers, Four Wave Mixing (wavelength conversion), third harmonic generation in Silicon-on-Insulator and other group IV technologies (Si compounds, Ge, GOS, GON), non linear optical effects in SiGeSn and SiC compounds. Other experimental activity has been focused on PE technology, with specific contributions to relate structural and optical properties of PE waveguides made by a mixture of proton sources, as well as optoelectronic and photonic devices based on silicon-on-insulator technology. Finally, more recent research activities involve fiber optic technology for high performance strain sensing based on fiber Bragg grating-assisted ring resonators, quantum photonic devices and investigation of novel architectures of DWDM passive optical networks for telecommunications systems.