Marino Marsi lauréat du prix Friedel-Volterra 2021

Marino Marsi, professor at Paris-Saclay University, is a condensed matter physicist whose results focus on clectronic properties and ultrafast dynamics of quantum materials, such as: topological insulators and Dirac fermion ultrafast dynamics, strongly correlated electronic systems, phase transitions and out-of-equilibrium dynamics including semiconductor surfaces/interfaces.

Marino Marsi, 56, commenced his scientific activity  at Trieste and then joined the light source at Madison -University of Wisconsin where he obtained a PhD in Physics (1992). He had worked as a post-doc at EPFL (Lausanne) for three years which were very fruitful since in addition, he had experienced extended stays at LURE. Frol 1995 to 2005, as a research scientist at Sincrotrone ELETTRA at Trieste, he started developing a new approach to time-resolved spectroscopy, combining synchrotron radiation and free-electron laser (FEL) in pump-probe configuration, to explore excited surface electronic states and their dynamics. These pioneering experiments have been the beginning of a series of successful research projects carried on in collaboration with French scientists operating at the LURE synchrotron radiation source (Orsay), in particular with Amina Taleb and the FEL group (led by M.E. Couprie and M. Billardon). These measurements, performed with a time resolution on the picosecond scale, made it possible to measure the effects of surface states on the band dynamics in Si(111) 2x1 and the effects of UV photoexcitation on SiO2/Si interfaces. Thanks to the novelty of the topic and of the experimental approach, this work raised a strong interest..

In 2005 he joined the Laboratoire de Physique des Solides in Orsay, where he established a group devoted to the study of electronic properties of quantum materials, with special emphasis on their out-of-equilibrium dynamics on the femtosecond time scale. Among the main results: the microscopic evolution of the Mott transition in correlated oxides,the study of transient non-thermal phases in Mott-Hubbard systems, the real-time study of photoexcited Dirac fermion dynamics in topological insulators. He also coordinates the Ultrafast Dynamics activities in Paris-Saclay in the framework of an excellence center (labex PALM).