Alessandra Lanzara is an Italian-American physicist and the distinguished Charles Kittel Professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley since 2002, where she leads an . She is an elected fellow of the American Physical Society since 2008 and in 2015 she was identified as one of the 'Leading Scientists of the World' by the International biographical center in Cambridge. She is known for her original contribution to the field of high temperature superconductivity and two dimensional materials. Lanzara is the founder and director of the Center for Sustainable Innovation at UCB and the elected Chair of the Far West session of the American Physical Society. She also holds several joint faculty appointments with: the Materials Sciences Division of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. where she directs the Ultrafast Materials Program; with the Applied Science and Technology Department and the Kavli Energy Nanosciences Institute. at UCB. She sits in the Faculty Advisory Board of the Lawrence Hall of Science and has served in the Science Policy Group of the US Presidential Campaign in 2016. She has also been invited to serves in prestigious Scientific Board such as the Scientific Advisory Council of the Advanced Light Source and of the Materials Science Division at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and in the Scientific Advisory Board of the CNR, the largest research council in Italy.
Training
Lanzara obtained her Laurea in physics and doctorate in Physics and Materials Sciences from the University of Rome La Sapienza in Italy. Lanzara subsequently held a postdoctoral fellowship appointment at Stanford University until 2002. In 2002, Lanzara joined UC Berkeley Physics Department as assistant professor and was promoted associated professor with tenure in 2006. She advanced to Full Professor in 2011.
Technology Transfer
Lanzara holds 4 international patents and is the cofounder of QuAD - Quantum Advanced Detection, a company that develops and manufactures high efficiency detection systems for manufacturing process control technology.
Research
Lanzara's team executes experiments at the frontiers of condensed matter physics towards understanding the behavior of novel quantum materials and to use light to manipulate materials and create new phases of matter. She is best known for exploring limits where the conventional understanding of the behavior of electrons in materials begins to break-down, leading to groundbreaking discoveries such as the discovery of spin momentum locking and electron-phonon interaction in high-temperature superconductors, symmetry breaking in graphene, to optical control of spin photocurrents in topological insulators. She is also known for developing a new synthesis method that has enabled the synthesis of large wafers of graphene and engineering of its bandage, critical for any electronic applications. She is also recognized for advancing the experimental technique of angle resolved photoemission spectroscopy to the time and spin realm, by pioneering a new way to image the electron spin, thus providing a leap in understanding topological phases of matter and quantum information science.
1. Versatile spin-polarized electron source Patent N: 9142634, September 22, 2015 Patent N: US2011223094-A1; C. Jozwiak, C. H. Park, K. Gotlieb, S. G. Louie, Z. Hussain, A. Lanzara 2. Method for Synthesis of high-quality graphene U.S Patent No. 8142754, March 27, 2012 Patent N: US2011223094-A1; US8142754-B2- Issued March 27, 2012 A. Lanzara, A. K. Schmid, X. Yu, C. Hwang, A. Kohl, C. Jozwiak 3. Time-of-flight electron energy analyzer” U.S Application No. 20130126727, May 23, 2013 Patent N: WO2011019457- A1; US2013126727-A1 C. Jozwiak, Z. Hussain, A. Lanzara, G. V. Lebedev, A. K. Schmid, N. C. Andesen, J. Graf.
