 | Laboratory of Theoretical and Experimental Superconductive Tunnelling |
 | Mauro Tortello
| ||||||||||||||||||
| Present position | Senior Post-Doc | ||||||||||||||||||
| Work and research experience |
| ||||||||||||||||||
| Education |
| ||||||||||||||||||
| Honors and awards |
| ||||||||||||||||||
| Summary of Research Activity | 2004-present Determination of the number, amplitude and symmetry of the superconducting energy gaps in the novel Fe-based superconductors and in heavy-fermion compounds by point-contact Andreev reflection (PCAR) spectroscopy as a function of temperature and of applied magnetic field. In single crystals the current can be injected along different crystallographic directions. PCAR conductance curves are analyzed (also as a function of temperature) by means of the Blonder-Thinkam-Klapwijk (BTK) model modified to take into account broadening effects. From the fittings of the curves it is possible to extract information regarding the energy gaps. Recently, the analysis has been extended to take into account the shape of the Fermi surface since the standard BTK model is calculated only for a spherical Fermi surface. When it is necessary the samples are characterized by means of AC magnetic susceptibility and electrical transport measurements. 2009-present Effect of intense electrical fields in thin films of metals, multilayer graphene and metallic superconductors and comparison with theoretical models by means of electrical transport measurements as a function of applied gate field and temperature. A technique that uses a polymer electrolyte solution (PES) as a dielectric, has been implemented in our lab. 2013-present - Study of the Josephson effect by means of point-contact experiments on Fe-based superconductors. Experiments are carried out as a function of temperature and microwave-power irradiation. - Collaboration to the design and set up of a inter-departmental laboratory, “Graphene@PoliTo”, dedicated to graphene and related materials. 2014-present Study of the thermal and morphological properties of graphene nanoplatelets and graphene-based nanocomposites by means of Atomic Force Microscopy, Scanning Thermal Microscopy and Nano-Thermal Analysis. 2009-2013 - Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS) and Linear Sweep Voltammetry (LSV) measurements of photoelectrochemical cells for water splitting. Measurements are performed in order to characterize new cell designs suitable for suitable water-splitting catalysts. - Study of mixed proton and electron conducting membranes for artificial innovative devices capable of using sunlight to produce hydrogen from water splitting by means of (i) electrical conductivity measurements in “dry” and “wet” conditions and as function of temperature; (ii) AC impedance measurements in “dry” and “wet” conditions performed by means of an electrochemical workstation in order to obtain, from the Nyquist plot, both electrical and protonic conductivity; (iii) Scanning Tunneling Microscopy (STM) and Scanning Tunneling Spectroscopy (STS) performed in order to study the topography and the local conductive properties of the nanocomposites and their dependence on CNTs content. | ||||||||||||||||||
| Publications | The
research described above has led to about 40 papers in international
journals, cited about 510 times (source: Web of Science, Scopus:
updated to Mar 2015) List of publications (archive of Politecnico di Torino) |
| LaTEST - Department of Applied Science and Technology, Politecnico di Torino corso Duca degli Abruzzi 24, 10129 Torino (TO) - Italy  |