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Two students working on a autonomous plane

Francesco Monticone

Assistant Professor
Electrical and Computer Engineering

Biography

Francesco Monticone is an Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Cornell University. He received the B.Sc. and M.Sc. (summa cum laude) degrees from Politecnico di Torino, Italy, in 2009 and 2011, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, in 2016. Dr. Monticone joined the faculty of Cornell University in January 2017.

Dr. Monticone has authored and co-authored more than 100 scientific contributions in peer-reviewed journal papers, book chapters, and peer-reviewed conference proceedings, receiving more than 3000 citations, and has given over 20 invited talks and seminars. His first-author papers have appeared in several high-impact journals, including Physical Review Letters (three times selected as “Editor’s Suggestion”), Nature Nanotechnology, Proceedings of the IEEE, Optica, and Science. He received the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) Young Investigator Program Award (YIP) in 2018. Dr. Monticone is a member of the IEEE, the American Physical Society (APS), the Optical Society of America (OSA), and a full member of the International Union of Radio Science (URSI).

Research Interests

Our current research interests are in the areas of applied electromagnetics, metamaterials, plasmonics, and nanophotonics, with applications ranging from microwaves to optical frequencies. We investigate – theoretically, numerically and experimentally – innovative and extreme aspects of wave interaction with engineered metamaterials and nanostructures, which may have strong scientific and practical impact in the coming years.

We have recently been working on a broad range of topics including extreme scattering engineering, cloaking and invisibility, nanoparticles, nanocircuits, nanoantennas, parity-time symmetry, non-Hermitian electromagnetic systems, advanced metasurfaces, and topological electromagnetics/photonics, with particular emphasis on cross-disciplinary research that takes inspiration from different scientific domains. In this context, we have also extensively worked on translating and exploiting well-established methods and concepts from microwave/antenna engineering and circuit theory to the realm of optics, photonics and nanotechnology.

Teaching Interests

Established two new courses in the school’s curriculum:

  1. ECE 4380/AEP 4450: Electromagnetic and Optical Metamaterials
  2. ECE 5970: Molding Light Flow: Advanced Electrodynamics of Complex Media

Selected Publications

  • Hassani Gangaraj, S. A., Monticone, Francesco. 2018. “Topological Waveguiding near an Exceptional Point: Defect-Immune, Slow-Light, and Loss-Immune Propagation.” Phys. Rev. Lett. 121: 093901.
  • Hassani Gangaraj, S. A., Silveirinha, M. G., Hanson, G. W., Antezza, M., Monticone, Francesco. 2018. “Optical torque on a two-level system near a strongly nonreciprocal medium”. Phys. Rev. B 98: 125146.
  • Doeleman, H. M., Monticone, Francesco, den Hollander, W., Alù, A., Koenderink, A. F. 2018. “Experimental observation of a polarization vortex at an optical bound state in the continuum.” Nat. Photonics 12: 397–401.
  • Monticone, Francesco, A. Alù. 2017. “Metamaterial, Plasmonic and Nanophotonic Devices.” Reports on Progress in Physics 80 (3).
  • Monticone, Francesco, A. Alù. 2016. “Invisibility Exposed: Physical Bounds on Passive Cloaking.” Optica 3 (7): 718-724.

Selected Awards and Honors

  • Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award 2022
  • Franco Strazzabosco Award for Research in Engineering (ISSNAF) 2021
  • Michael Tien ’72 Teaching Award (Cornell University College of Engineering) 2020
  • Leopold B. Felsen Award for Excellence in Electrodynamics (European Conference on Antennas and Propagation (EuCAP)) 2019
  • AFOSR Young Investigator Program Award (YIP) (US Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR)) 2018
  • Inaugural Margarida Jacome Dissertation Award (UT Austin, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering) 2017
  • Raj Mittra Travel Grant Award(IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society) 2017
  • Three times selected as “Editor’s Suggestion” in Physical Review Letters (American Physical Society)
  • Best Paper Award, (Metamaterials congress) 2013

Education

  • B.S. (Electronics Engineering), Politecnico di Torino, 2009
  • M.S. (Electronics Engineering), Politecnico di Torino, 2011
  • Ph.D. (Electrical and Computer Engineering), The University of Texas at Austin, 2016

Websites