In Hannover, Prof. Dr. Calà Lesina leads an international team of talented researchers, comprising two postdoctoral fellows, five PhD students, two MSc student assistants, and five students working on their Master's theses or projects. Together, they develop theoretical and computational methods to simulate, understand, and design optical nanostructures, integrated optical circuits, metasurfaces, and metamaterials. These are engineered materials and surfaces with optical properties that go beyond those found in nature.
The group focuses on controlling light-matter interactions by design to create more efficient, adaptable, and multifunctional optical devices. "It's like being an architect in the nanoworld," Calà Lesina says. His team also works closely with experimental collaborators to bring concepts to reality.
He is also active in teaching, offering courses such as Introduction to Nanophotonics and Introduction to Computational Optics. These courses introduce students to the physical principles and modern computational tools behind advanced optical simulation and design at the nanoscale.
Prof. Calà Lesina is involved in several international initiatives, such as the European Doctoral Network FunctiGlass, the International School of Physical Computing at the Ettore Majorana Foundation (Erice, Italy), the Photonics North Conference, and the Max Planck-University of Ottawa Centre for Extreme and Quantum Photonics. With the full professorship, he looks forward to expanding his research agenda and collaborations even further.
As a dual citizen of Italy and Canada with extensive international experience, he is also committed to supporting the university's internationalization strategy and helping to make Leibniz University Hannover even more attractive to students and researchers from around the world. "Hannover is the ideal place to dream big," he notes, citing the dynamic growth of the local photonics community. Initiatives such as the second funding phase of PhoenixD and the construction of the new OPTICUM research building present exciting opportunities to shape the future of the field.
Are you interested in writing your Master's thesis in the above-described research field? Then, contact Prof. Calà Lesina via email.
Do you want to broaden your knowledge of next-generation information processing? Then, join the 1st workshop, "Photonic Computing and Machine Learning," which will take place in Erice, Sicily, from October 30 to November 4, 2025. Learn more about this event here.
