Rate My Professor Domenico Pacifici

Domenico Pacifici is an Associate Professor of Engineering and Associate Professor of Physics at Brown University. He joined the School of Engineering as an Assistant Professor in 2009, was promoted to Associate Professor in 2016, and has served as Director of the Brown Nanofabrication Central Facility since September 2016. Pacifici earned his Ph.D. in Physics (cum laude, 2004) from the University of Catania, Italy, with a dissertation on erbium-doped silicon nanoclusters for microphotonics, and his Laurea in Physics (summa cum laude, equivalent to M.Sc., 2000) from the same institution, focusing on interactions between silicon nanocrystals and erbium ions. He also received an M.A. in Engineering ad eundem from Brown University in 2017. His postdoctoral training included positions as Postdoctoral Scholar (2005-2007) and Senior Postdoctoral Scholar (2007-2009) in the Department of Applied Physics at the California Institute of Technology, followed by a Research Fellow role at the University of Catania (2004-2005). Additionally, he holds appointments as CNST Visiting Fellow in the Nanofabrication Research Group at the National Institute of Standards and Technology and as Visiting Associate Professor at the Institute for Research in Electronics & Applied Physics at the University of Maryland, College Park.

Pacifici's research specializes in silicon-based microphotonics, nanophotonics, plasmonics, and nanoengineered materials and devices for sensing, optical communication, and energy-harvesting applications. His group has developed plasmonic interferometry techniques for measuring subwavelength spatial coherence of light, modulating optical coherence with surface plasmon polaritons, high-throughput biochemical sensors for real-time detection of analytes like insulin and Alzheimer's biomarkers, high-efficiency germanium quantum dot photodetectors spanning visible to near-infrared wavelengths, and plasmonic concentrators enhancing absorption in thin-film perovskite solar cells. Selected publications include "Measuring subwavelength spatial coherence with plasmonic interferometry" (Nature Photonics, 2016), "Strong amplitude and phase modulation of optical spatial coherence with surface plasmon polaritons" (Science Advances, 2017), "Plasmonic interferometers as TREM2 sensors for Alzheimer's disease" (Biosensors, 2021), and "Highly stable and efficient all-inorganic lead-free perovskite solar cells with native-oxide passivation" (Nature Communications, 2019). Pacifici has received the Henry Merritt Wriston Fellowship (2013), Richard B. Salomon Faculty Research Award (2010), Dedicated Faculty Award from Brown School of Engineering and Tau Beta Pi (2012), and Sigma Xi Full Membership (2020), among others. His research has been supported by grants from the National Science Foundation, Office of Naval Research, and Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.