Zucchetti Carlo

Carlo Zucchetti is Assistant Professor (RTT) at the Department of Physics, Politecnico di Milano since December 2024, when he became head of the SemiSpin laboratory, where he conducts experimental research in semiconductor spintronics and spin-orbitronics. His work aims at the active control of the spin degree of freedom in microelectronics-compatible platforms, combining optical generation of spin-polarized carriers with electrical detection through spin-to-charge interconversion phenomena (spin Hall and Rashba–Edelstein effects) in Ge- and Si-based heterostructures, and at interfaces with metals and topological insulators. For these studies, he develops and uses optical and magneto-transport setups (including Kerr microscopy), also at cryogenic temperatures, integrating measurements with numerical and computational modelling to determine spin lifetimes and spin diffusion lengths, as well as the efficiencies of spin and orbital angular-momentum injection in semiconductor nanostructures.

After obtaining his MSc in Engineering Physics (110/110 cum laude) at Politecnico di Milano, he earned a PhD in Physics cum laude (2019) with a thesis on spin-charge interconversion in germanium-based structures, under the supervision of Prof. Marco Finazzi. During his PhD he spent a period as a visiting PhD student at CEA-Spintec in Grenoble (2018), in Dr. Matthieu Jamet’s group, focusing on magneto-transport effects in Ge heterostructures. Since 2022 he has been a researcher at the Department of Physics, Politecnico di Milano. In 2024 he was an Academic Guest at ETH Zürich in Prof. Pietro Gambardella’s group, where he worked on Kerr microscopy to study spin and orbital angular-momentum accumulations and on spin-orbit-torque phenomena in metal/ferromagnet heterostructures.

He is the author of more than 30 publications in international journals, with articles appearing, among others, in Physical Review Letters, ACS Photonics, APL Photonics and APL Materials. He serves as a reviewer for international journals (Physical Review Letters, Physical Review B, Physical Review Applied, Applied Physics Letters, ACS Applied Electronic Materials and others) and regularly participates in conferences in the fields of spintronics, magnetism and materials science with oral or invited contributions. He is the scientific coordinator of the SPIGA project, devoted to the development of a logic gate based on semiconductor and topological-insulator heterostructures. Alongside his research, he contributes to teaching in Physics courses for engineering programs and supports laboratory training and the supervision of theses on semiconductor spintronics topics.