# Federico Capasso ![FedericoCapasso](/sites/g/files/omnuum6306/files/styles/hwp_1_1__360x360_scale/public/capasso/files/federico_0.jpg?itok=1OS1safN) [Download CV as PDF](/sites/g/files/omnuum6306/files/2025-07/FC-CV2025.pdf) ## Personal details **Name:** Federico Capasso **Address:** School of Engineering and Applied Sciences Harvard University 205 A Pierce Hall 29 Oxford Street Cambridge MA 02138 **Phone:** (617) 384-7611 **Fax:** (617) 495-2875 **Email:** **Personal**: Married; two children **Citizenship**: Italian and US (Naturalized; 09/23/1992) ## Education 1973 Doctor of Physics, Summa Cum Laude University of Rome, La Sapienza, Italy 1973-1974 Postdoctoral Fellow, Fondazione Bordoni, Rome, Italy ## Academic Appointments Jan. 2003 - present Robert Wallace Professor of Applied Physics Vinton Hayes Senior Research Fellow in Electrical Engineering John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences Harvard University, Cambridge, MA ## Professional Positions 2000 – 2002 Vice President of Physical Research, Bell Laboratories Lucent Technologies, Murray Hill, NJ 1997- 2000 Department Head, Semiconductor Physics Research, Bell Laboratories Lucent Technologies, Murray Hill, NJ. 1987- 1997 Department Head, Quantum Phenomena and Device Research, Bell Laboratories Lucent Technologies (formerly AT&T Bell Labs, until 1996), Murray Hill, NJ 1984 – 1987 Distinguished Member of Technical Staff, Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, NJ 1977 – 1984 Member of Technical Staff, Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, NJ 1976 – 1977 Visiting Scientist, Bell Laboratories, Holmdel, NJ 1974 – 1976 Research Physicist, Fondazione Bordoni, Rome, Italy **Citations** ([Google Scholar](https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=CmpEzW8AAAAJ&hl=en)): Over 128 000 **H-index** ([Google Scholar](https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=CmpEzW8AAAAJ&hl=en)): 164 **Publications**: Over 700 peer-reviewed journals **Patents**: 97 US patents ## Key achievements ### 1. Bandstructure Engineering.and Quantum Cascade Lasers (QCLs) Capasso and his Bell Labs collaborators over a 20-year period pioneered band-structure engineering, a technique to design and implement artificially structured (“man-made”) semiconductor, materials, and related phenomena/ devices, which revolutionized heterojunction devices in photonics and electronics. Quantum Cascade lasers represent the most important highlight of this research. Invented and demonstrated by Capasso and his group ([Science 264, 553 (1994)](https://doi.org/10.1126/science.264.5158.553), over 6000 citations). Unlike diode laser they are unipolar lases based on new operating principle. Their emission wavelength can be tailored over an extreme broad range by changing nanometer layer thickness while using the same materials. They have revolutionized mid-infrared photonics, as they represent the first high performance and reliable semiconductor lasers for this technologically and scientifically important spectral region. They are finding widespread use in scientific and industrial applications: high-resolution spectroscopy, chemical sensing and trace gas analysis, atmospheric chemistry, combustion and medical diagnostics. They are widely commercialized by many companies. ### 2. Metasurfaces and Flat optics The seminal paper ([Science 334 333 (2011)](https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1210713), over 5500 citations) of Capasso and his group is widely recognized has the one which introduced subwavelength structured surfaces (metasurfaces) as a powerful and flexible tool for wavefront control by judicious design of the local phase, amplitude and polarization. This paper generalized the textbook laws of reflection and refraction and demonstrated them for a general class of designer metasurfaces. Capasso pioneered the use of metasurfaces as a platform for Flat Optics demonstrating metalenses with superior aberration control compared to conventional diffractive optics (Fresnel) and refractive optics, with much less thickness and complexity and ease of optical alignment. Highlights are the first high performance diffraction limited dielectric metalens in the visible ([Science 352, 1190 (2016)](https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aaf6644), over 1750 citations), the first single broadband achromatic lens and the correction of third order aberration including field curvature with a single metaoptic. This work triggered a large scale scientific and industrial effort, propelled by Capasso’s vision that since metaoptic can be fabricated by large scale fabrication techniques of semiconductor industry (DUV lithography), this will lead to a convergence of CMOS technology and lens making. Metasurfaces have therefore major advantages with respect to bulk metamaterials in terms of technological impact. The latter suffer from major fabrication complexities at optical wavelengths, greatly limiting their application potential. In the area of polarization, the impact of flat optics has also been major leading to new compact high performance in line and terminating polarimeters. A powerful generalization of Fourier optics introduced (Matrix Fourier Optics) by Capasso and his team has led them to the demonstration of a new single shot ultracompact polarization sensitive camera consisting of a single metasurface and a sensor, which pixel by pixel reconstruct in real time the full Stokes vector of the scene, exhibiting superior performance to existing cameras based on division of amplitude, time and focal plane ([Science 365, 6448 (2019)](https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aax1839), 150 citations). Capasso has published many seminal breakthrough papers on plasmonic metasurfaces. He demonstrated collimators on the facet of semiconductor laser for beam shaping in the near- and farfield, the earliest successful application of metasurfaces in active devices. He has obtained fundamental new results on the propagation of surface plasmons, such as the polarization controlled directional coupling of surface plasmon polaritons leading him to the first direct evidence of spin momentum locking in optics, and the demonstration of a localized long-range nondiffracting surface wave, the Cosine-Gauss plasmon beam. In a highly cited paper ([Science 328 1135 (2010)](https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1187949), 1440 citations) he and Naomi Halas group demonstrated core-shell nanoparticles clusters (trimers, quadrumers and heptamers) as building blocks of a new class of optical materials, exhibiting magnetic activity in the near infrared and giant Fano resonances. ### 3. Casimir forces This research has focused on basic studies of the Casimir effect, i.e. the attractive force between uncharged metals and dielectrics, with the goal of designing these quantum electrodynamical forces by control of quantum fluctuations through changes (shapes and materials) of the boundary conditions of the electromagnetic fields. Highlights of this highly cited work are: • Demonstration of actuators using the Casimir force, based on MEMS ([Science 291, 1941 (2001)](https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1057984), 1000 citations). This work explored the limits imposed by QED on MEMS technology and its potential in modifying and designing these forces. • First measurement of the repulsive Casimir-Lifshitz force ([Nature 457 170, (2009)](https://doi.org/10.1038/nature07610), 660 citations) an effect first predicted in the nineteen sixties, the Capasso proposed as a tool to control friction in new ways. ## Entrepeneurship 2010 Cofounded *EOS Photonics* to market Quantum Cascade Laser based sensors of gases for atmospheric science and security; standoff detection of hazardous vapors and condensed phase materials; molecular spectroscopy and power scaling. It merged in 2015 with *Pendar Medical* to form *Pendar Technologies* () which is focused on bringing breakthrough portable analysis and monitoring systems to market. 2016 Cofounded Metalenz () focused on bringing to market metalenses for high-volume applications (cell phones and sensors). It is supported by major strategic investors such as Intel, 3M and Applied Materials and had in 2021 its first major product launch: ## Honors ### Awards 2023 Web of Science Clarivate citation Laureate (2023) 2023 Lifetime Achievement Award, Italian Scientists and Scholars in North America Foundation (ISSNAF) 2023 Citation Laureate, Clarivate 2021 Frederic Ives Medal and Jarus W. Quinn Prize, Optical Society of America 2020 Honorary Award, IEEE Italy Section 2019 Matteucci Medal, Accademia Nazionale delle Scienze, detta dei XL 2019 Guglelmo Marconi Science Award, UNICO 2018 Fermi Prize of the Italian Physical Society 2017 Kenneth Button Prize, International Society of Infrared, Millimeter and Terahertz Waves and Institute of Physics (UK) 2016 Balzan Prize for Applied Photonics, Balzan Foundation 2015 Rumford Prize, American Academy of Arts and Science 2013 Gold Medal of SPIE 2013 European Physical Society Quantum Electronics and Optics Award 2013 Humboldt Research Award 2011 Jan Czochralski Award of the European Materials Research Society 2011 Galileo Galilei Medal of the Italian Society for Optics and Photonics 2010 Julius Springer Prize in Applied Physics 2010 Berthold Leibinger Zukunft Prize (Future prize) 2005 King Faisal International Prize for Science 2005 Gold Medal of the President of Italy for meritorious achievement in science 2004 Edison Medal, Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) 2004 Arthur Schawlow Prize in Laser Science, American Physical Society 2004 Tommasoni & Chisesi Prize for Outstanding Achievements in Physics 2003 Goff Smith Prize and Lecture, University of Michigan 2002 Duddell Medal and Prize of the Institute of Physics (London, UK) 2001 Robert Wood Prize of the Optical Society of America 2000 Willis E. Lamb Medal for Laser Physics and Quantum Optics 2000 NASA Group Achievement Award 1998 IEEE/Laser & Electrooptics Society W. Streifer Award for Scientific Achievement 1998 Rank Prize in Optoelectronics (UK) 1998 Capitolium Prize of the Mayor of Rome, Italy 1997 Wetherill Medal of the Franklin Institute 1997 Bell Laboratories Fellow Award 1995 Materials Research Society Medal 1995 Moet Hennessy·Louis Vuitton “Leonardo da Vinci” Award of Excellence (France) 1995 Newcomb Cleveland Prize of the American Assosciation for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) for best paper published in Science 1995 Electronics Letters Prize of the Institute of Electrical Engineers (London, UK) 1994 Heinrich Welker Memorial Medal (Germany) and International CompoundSemiconductors Symposium Award 1993 The New York Academy of Sciences Award 1991 IEEE David Sarnoff Award in Electronics 1984 Bell Laboratories Distinguished Member of Technical Staff Award ### Memberships/Fellowships 2019 Fellow, National Academy of Inventors 2015 Member, Academia Europaea 2012 Foreign Member, Accademia dei Lincei 1995 Member, National Academy of Sciences 1996 Member, National Academy of Engineering 1998 Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences 1999 Fellow, The Institute of Physics (UK) 1997 Honorary Member, of the Franklin Institute 1992 Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science 1991 Fellow, International Society for Optical Engineering (SPIE) 1989 Fellow, Optical Society of America 1987 Fellow, Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers 1986 Fellow, American Physical Society ### Honorary Doctorates and Other Honors 2019 Honorary issue of *Nanophotonics* (Volume 7, Issue 6, Jun 2018) for Federico Capasso on “Metamaterials & Metasurfaces” 2011 Honorary Doctorate, University Paris Diderot, France 2011 Honorary Doctorate of Technology, Lund University, Sweden 2011 Honorary Doctorate in Materials Science, University of Roma III, Italy 2003 Honorary Doctorate in Electrical Engineering, University of Bologna, Italy 2004 Commendatore of the Italian Republic