Academic Carrier
1987 Degree (Laurea) in Physics, University of Pisa
1989 Degree from the Specialty School in Medical Physics, University of Pisa
1990 - 2006 Researcher, University of Pisa, Italy
2006 - present Associate Professor, University of Pisa, Italy
Research activity summary
1988 - 1999: Study and development of direct-detection-systems for X-ray using semiconductor detectors. A feasibility study was performed to study the possible use of double-sided micro-strip silicon detectors in digital radiography field. A digital radiography prototype based on a 300 micron thick square detector, 32 mm in side, read-out by front-end integrated circuits, 100 micron pitch, and connected to a dedicated DAQ electronics, was realized and tested.
1992 1993: A system for digital angiography: a Si(Li) detector system was developed for transvenous coronary angiography experiments using synchrotron radiation was tested. This study was performed in collaboration with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory - Berkeley, California, U.S.A, while the test beams and the human images acquisitions where performed at the Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, New York, U.S.A.
1998 2009: Study and development of semiconductor (Si and GaAs) pixel detectors, with particular attention to Si thick detectors (up to 1mm). Development of detecting systems based on the principle of single photon counting and their applications to various fields were performed. In particular: 1) A prototype of a mammographic head has been realized: the prototype is able to cover a 18x24 cm2 area and was realized assembling several detection units. Each unit is based on a 200 micron thick GaAs pixel detector bump-bonded to a single photon counting VLSI electronic asic: MPXI. This applied research was funded by Italian Government (law 46/82 art. 10: Technological transfer to industries). 2) A CT scanner prototype for small animals, based on silicon pixel detectors was developed and characterized, studying also the advantages of X-ray energy selection; 3) A fast spectrometer for diagnostic X-Ray beams and a proton beam profiler based on silicon pixel detectors were realized and their performances measured. These researches were founded by INFN.
2006 - present: Development of a PET system to monitor the treatment precision in the field of cancer therapy by means of accelerated particles beams (hadrontherapy). The system has two stationary detecting heads, based on scintillating crystals coupled to standard photomultipliers and read-out by dedicated electronics. The system, actual size of each detecting head 10x10cm2, is capable to work in-beam with sensitivity and spatial resolution so as to reconstruct the activity distal fall-off position with the precision of the millimeter. This research is funded by INFN ( RDH experiment, and DoPET experiment) and for some aspects also by the Italian Government with the project INSIDE: "Innovative solutions for in-beam dosimetry in hadrontherapy (PRIN 2010).
Invited lectures and thesis
Dozens of talks given in national and international institutes and conferences. Thesis supervisor of more than 20 students in Physics and few Ph.D. students in Physics on topics of Medical Physics.
Publications
More than 80 papers published on refereed journals.