Research

His research interests include the following main lines:

- The experimental investigation of optical nonlinear wave propagation in soft matter, nonlocal anisotropic media and liquid crystals. This topic includes the study of nonlocal optical spatial solitons and their phenomenology, and more recently, of the interplay of nonlinearities with different temporal scales sustaining optical bullets and parametric generation in self-confined beams.

-The experimental investigation of devices for the enhancement and the manipulation of THz waves, including sub-wavelength micro and nano-imaging systems at THz wavelengths; M.P. is supported by a ERC Consolidator Grant and by the Marie Curie Career Integration Grant for this research activity.

-Nonlinear optical effects in nanostructured integrated optics, from signal processing to ultrafast clocks.