Ianina Lucila Violi

• PhD
• Researcher at National Scientific and Technical Research Council

Metallic nanoparticles possess strong photothermal responses, especially when illuminated as ensembles due to collective effects. However, accurately quantifying the temperature increase remains a significant challenge, impeding progress in several applications. Anti Stokes thermometry offers a promising solution by enabling direct and non‐invasive...

Localized surface plasmons are lossy and generate heat. However, accurate measurement of the temperature of metallic nanoparticles under illumination remains an open challenge, creating difficulties in the interpretation of results across plasmonic applications. Particularly, there is a quest for understanding the role of temperature in plasmon-ass...

Obtaining arrays of single nanoparticles with three-dimensional complex shapes is still an open challenge. Current nanolithography methods do not allow for the preparation of nanoparticles with complex features like nanostars. In this work, we investigate the optical printing of gold nanostars of different sizes as a function of laser wavelength an...

Localized surface plasmons are lossy and generate heat. However, accurate measurement of the temperature of metallic nanoparticles under illumination remains an open challenge, creating difficulties in the interpretation of results across plasmonic applications. Particularly, there is a quest for understanding the role of temperature in plasmon-ass...

The morphology and composition of metallic nanoparticles (NPs) determine their optical response, so finely controlling them at the single particle level is the key to achieve tailored functionalities. Here, the control of plasmon‐driven growth of Au NPs is studied by live monitoring their photoluminescence emission in a closed‐loop. It is found tha...

While colloidal chemistry provides ways to obtain a great variety of nanoparticles with different shapes, sizes, material composition, and surface functions, their controlled deposition and combination on arbitrary positions of substrates remains a considerable challenge. Over the last ten years, optical printing arose as a versatile method to achi...

While colloidal chemistry provides ways to obtain a great variety of nanoparticles, with different shapes, sizes, material composition, and surface functions, their controlled deposition and combination on arbitrary positions of substrates remains a considerable challenge. Over the last ten years, optical printing arose as a versatile method to ach...

Several fields of applications require a reliable characterization of the photothermal response and heat dissipation of nanoscopic systems, which remains a challenging task both for modeling and experimental measurements. Here, we present a new implementation of anti-Stokes thermometry that enables the in situ photothermal characterization of indiv...

Several fields of applications require a reliable characterization of the photothermal response and heat dissipation of nanoscopic systems, which remains a challenging task both for modeling and experimental measurements. Here, we present an implementation of anti-Stokes thermometry that enables the in situ photothermal characterization of individu...

Silicon nanoparticles possess unique size-dependent optical properties due to their strong electric and magnetic resonances in the visible range. However, their widespread application has been limited, in comparison to other (e.g. metallic) nanoparticles, because their preparation on monodisperse colloids remains challenging. Exploiting the unique...

Silicon nanoparticles possess unique size-dependent optical properties due to their strong electric and magnetic resonances in the visible range. These properties are of particular application relevance if lateral ordered patterns of Silicon nanoparticles with defined size are accessible. However, their widespread application has been limited, in c...

Surfactant-free silicon nanoparticles of a predefined and narrow (σ < 10 nm) size range can be selectively immobilized on a substrate by optical printing from a polydisperse colloidal suspension. The size selectivity is based on differential optical forces that can be applied on different sized nanoparticles by tuning the light wavelength to their...

Estrogen receptor α (ERα) is expressed in tissues as diverse as brains and mammary glands. In breast cancer, ERα is a key regulator of tumor progression. Therefore, understanding what activates ERα is critical for cancer treatment in particular and cell biology in general. Using biochemical approaches and superresolution microscopy, we show that es...

Porous titania films are widely studied in a number of optoelectronic applications due to its favorable optical and electronic characteristics. Mesoporous titania thin films (MTTFs) with tunable pore size, pore order, accessibility and crystallinity are of interest in electronic devices due to the potential for optimization of the desired character...

Optical printing is a powerful all-optical method that allows the incorporation of colloidal nanoparticles (NPs) onto substrates with nanometric precision. Here, we present a systematic study of the accuracy of optical printing of Au and Ag NPs, using different laser powers and wavelengths. When using light of wavelength tuned to the localized surf...

Optical printing holds great potential to enable the use of the vast variety of colloidal nanoparticles (NPs) in nano- and micro- devices and circuits. By means of optical forces, it enables the direct assembly of NPs, one by one, onto specific positions of solid surfaces with great flexibility of pattern design and no need of previous surface patt...

A scalable, simple, robust and reproducible method is presented for the preparation of chemically homogeneous and ordered nanocrystalline and mesoporous Zr1−xCexO2 thin films. The method utilizes widely available commercial block copolymers as templates. We show how the preparation conditions, film compositions and thermal treatments determine the...

Optical printing has been proved a versatile and simple method to fabricate arbitrary arrays of colloidal nanoparticles (NPs) on substrates. Here we show that is also a powerful tool for studying chemical reactions at the single NP level. We demonstrate that 60 nm gold NPs immobilized by optical printing can be used as seeds to obtain larger NPs by...

Optical printing is a simple and flexible method to bring colloidal nanoparticles from suspension to specific locations of a substrate. However, its application has been limited to the fabrication of arrays of isolated nanoparticles because until now, it was never possible to bring nanoparticles closer together than approximately 300 nm. Here, we p...

Gold nanoparticles (NP) trapped in the mesopores of mixed zirconia-ceria thin films are prepared in a straightforward and reproducible way. The films exhibit enhanced stability and excellent catalytic activity in nitro group reduction by borohydride and electrocatalytic activity in CO and ethanol oxidation and oxygen reduction.

Highly porous (V(mesopore) = 25-50%) and ordered mesoporous titania thin films (MTTF) were prepared on ITO (indium tin oxide)-covered glass by a fast two-step method. The effects of substrate surface modification and thermal treatment on pore order, accessibility and crystallinity of the MTTF were systematically studied for MTTF deposited onto bare...

The field of hybrid photovoltaic devices has become increasingly attractive due to the potential advantages of using organic and inorganic semiconductors combined. However, many challenges remain, especially in the development of optimized inorganic materials for optoelectronic applications. In this work, we carefully design an inorganic titania na...