Nanotechnology
In macroscopic systems, fluctuations of macroscopic quantities are negligible and matter appears as a continuum, that can be described by phenomenological laws, such as the hydrodynamic laws. This does not happen at small scales, such nano-metric and smaller scales. At such scales, fluctuations may be comparable to the observed signals, and may produce behaviours that are called "anomalous" because different from the macroscopic standard behaviours. The border between the range of applicability of
macroscopic laws, and that of anomalous phenomena constitutes in reality a rather wide region that depends on the phenomenon at hand. In this research line, one attempts to characterize the transition between microscopic and macroscopic scale, developing techniques to approach problems that cannot be tackled by macroscopic laws. Applications involve transport in highly confining media, such as nano-porou membranes, and nano-structured materials. At macroscopic scales, fluctuations are important in order to describe the response to driving of nonequilibrium systems or in the case of very accurate measurements.
These investigations are performed within national and international cooperations, as well as with companies interested in patents and commercialization of new industrial products.