Magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) are widely used in biomedical applications, including their role as hyperthermic agents for tumor treatment via Magnetic Fluid Hyperthermia (MFH) and as tracers in Quantitative Susceptibility Mapping (QSM).
In MFH, MNPs exposed to an alternating magnetic field generate localized heat within pathological tissues, enabling targeted thermal therapy. QSM is an...
We demonstrate that bound states in the continuum (BICs) can arise in plasmonic metasurfaces and enable a strong chiral optical response. The metasurface consists of a gold film on glass patterned with a square lattice of nanoholes whose shapes are deformed from circular to oval. Symmetry breaking induces a quasi-BIC in the absorption spectrum on the low-energy side of the...
The MANIFOLD project (Multidimensional nANodevice archItectures For lOw-perturbation singLe ion Detection) introduces a cutting-edge detector for low-perturbation, high-resolution sensing of diluted H/He ion beams (100 keV–2 MeV). Using multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs), it delivers submicrometric resolution with negligible beam disturbance.
Ions or single particles traverse a MWCNT-lined...
Positive non-decomposable maps play a fundamental role in quantum information theory, as they provide a tool to detect entanglement beyond what is possible with decomposable maps.
Despite their importance, relatively little is known about the structure of positive non-decomposable maps or systematic methods to generate them. In this work, we present a fully differentiable optimization...
Boron$~$Neutron$~$Capture$~$Therapy$~$(BNCT)$~$delivers$~$tumor-selective high-LET damage through a mixed radiation field in which $^{10}$B(n,α)$^7$Li products coexist with photons and protons. At the University of Pavia, we integrate radiobiological experiments with detailed Monte Carlo dosimetry to improve mixed-field dose response modeling and strengthen the photon iso-effective dose...
This study’s aim is to explore the use of Gallium Nitride (GaN) nanowires (NWs) for photoelectrochemical water splitting. GaN's wide bandgap may offer a route for hydrogen production using solar energy. However, growth challenges, such as high defect densities, hinder its efficiency. Nanowire structures offer a solution due to their low defect density and efficient strain relaxation. We grew...
Quantum key distribution (QKD) protocols take at least two advantages from high-dimensional (HD) systems: the secret key rate scaling as the dimension and the opportunity of exploiting more than two mutually unbiased bases (MUBs). Indeed, if the dimension d of the system is a prime power, then d+1 MUBs exist. Here, we retrieve analytic key rates for a BBM92-like protocol, where the...
Il Laboratorio di Servizio Elettronica beneficia della collaborazione di personale afferente all’INFN Sezione di Pavia, al Dipartimento di Fisica e al Centro Grandi Strumenti dell’Università di Pavia. Si dedica allo sviluppo di circuiti analogici, digitali e di potenza e al supporto di attività di ricerca locali, nazionali ed internazionali. È infatti inserito in un contesto di collaborazione...
Iron oxide-based magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) are exploited as Contrast Agents (CAs) for Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). The magnetic nature and high magnetization values induce sizable inhomogeneities in the local magnetic field, perturbing the surrounding hydrogen nuclei present in the biological tissues according to their bio-distribution. The perturbations at nuclear sites shorten the...
The proton is the most common element of the visible universe, yet we
don't know how to reconstruct its macroscopic properties (mass, spin,..)
from the elementary degrees of freedom of the Strong Interaction, the
quarks and gluons (collectively, partons) of QCD. Partons are not
visible, they are confined inside hadrons because at hadronic mass
scales QCD is highly nonlinear and not...
Muonic atoms are formed after the capture of negative muons in atomic orbitals, followed by de-excitation through the emission of characteristic X-rays. In high-Z atoms, nuclear capture can occur, producing gamma rays with energies strongly dependent on nuclear structure.
The FAMU experiment at RAL (UK) aims at measuring the ground-state hyperfine splitting in muonic hydrogen to extract the...
Medical image analysis provides a non-invasive framework to investigate disease-related imaging patterns. Our work focuses on radiomics applied to Computed Tomography (CT) and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) data, extracting quantitative features to study their association with biomarker expression and with different disease phenotypes and subtypes. These approaches aim to complement...
Visual information can be manipulated in terms of images, usually captured and then processed through a sequence of computational operations. Alternatively, optical systems can perform such operations directly, reducing computational overhead at the cost of stricter design requirements. We discuss this workflow in the context of quantum technologies. First, we introduce a quantum algorithm...
The vast disparity between the LHC collision rate (∼40 MHz) and data storage capacity (∼1 kHz) forces the ATLAS Trigger to implement stringent cuts on high transverse momentum. These restrictions, such as the prescale on single-jet triggers severely limit physics sensitivity and discard many low-mass events (e.g., dijet below 1 TeV).
To recover these signatures, ATLAS implemented the...
