CV / Biography
Letizia Catalini is a team leader at AMOLF and leads QSTeM, the Testbed for Mechanical Quantum Sensing, a collaboration between AMOLF and TU Delft founded by Ewold Verhagen and Simon Gröblacher. Her research focuses on nanomechanical and optomechanical resonators for sensing applications.
During her PhD in the Quantum Optomechanics group at the Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, Letizia studied nonlinear phenomena in dissipation-diluted nanomechanical resonators under the supervision of Albert Schliesser. Combining analytical modelling, numerical simulations and precision experiments, she investigated nonlinear damping, amplitude-dependent frequency shifts and the dynamics of ultracoherent soft-clamped silicon-nitride resonators. She also worked on soft-clamped phononic structures for mechanical sensing and transduction and on parametric control of mechanical motion. Together, these studies explored both the fundamental nonlinearities of ultracoherent mechanical systems and how their dynamics can be engineered for enhanced sensing and control. She received her PhD in Physics from the University of Copenhagen in 2022 with the thesis Nonlinear Phenomena in Dissipation-Diluted Nanomechanical Resonators.
Building on this work, Letizia joined the Laboratory for Solid State Physics at ETH Zürich as a postdoctoral researcher, where she worked with Christian Degen and Alexander Eichler from 2022 to 2024. There, she turned towards the use of ultrasensitive silicon-nitride resonators for scanning force microscopy and quantum sensing. She worked on string- and membrane-based scanning force microscopy and precision optical readout of mechanical sensors, aiming to combine nanoscale imaging with the exceptional force sensitivity of high-Q resonators. In parallel, she continued to explore the nonlinear dynamics of driven mechanical systems, including energy landscapes and dynamical phase transitions.
Since joining AMOLF in 2024, Letizia has brought these different strands together within QSTeM. Her current work combines low-dissipation nanomechanical devices with precision optical readout and control to develop, test and benchmark emerging mechanical sensing technologies. By connecting ultracoherent resonators, optomechanical measurement and techniques, she aims to explore the limits of mechanical sensing and translate advances in nanomechanics and quantum measurement towards real-world applications.
