Francesco Petruccione

Prof. Francesco Petruccione

	Francesco Petruccione was born in 1961 in Genova (Italy). He studied Physics at the University of Freiburg i. Br. and received his PhD in 1988. He got his “Habilitation” (Dr. rer. nat. habil.) from the same University in 1994 and worked there as Associate Professor of Theoretical Physics until 2003. In 2004 he was appointed Professor of Theoretical Physics at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. In 2005 he was awarded an Innovation Fund grant to set up a Centre for Quantum Technology. In 2007 he was granted a South African Research Chair for Quantum Information Processing and Communication. Since March 2008 he is a member of the Board of the UKZN Innovation Company. At present, he is one of the Deputy Directors of the National Institute for Theoretical Physics.
He has published more than 90 papers in refereed journals. He is the co-author of a monograph on “The Theory of Open Quantum Systems”, that was published in 2002, reprinted as paperback in 2007, and is being translated in Russian at the moment. He is a member the Editorial Board of "Open Systems and Information Dynamics". He is the editor of several proceedings volumes and of special editions of scientific Journals. He has been invited to deliver more than 50 talks. Prof. Petruccione has been working on the theory of open quantum systems, which is at the basis of many recent quantum technological applications. The miniaturization of technological devices necessitates manipulation of objects at the nanoscale level at which coherent quantum mechanical processes start to dominate the physical properties. The unavoidable interaction of these systems with their environment gives rise to dissipative mechanisms and a strong loss of quantum coherence, i.e. decoherence. Since perfect isolation of quantum systems is not possible, it is of central importance to incorporate the methods and tools of the theory of quantum systems in the exploration of quantum technologies. Among the basic tools of the new quantum technologies are quantum metrology, quantum control, quantum, communication and quantum computation.

Francesco Petruccione was born in 1961 in Genova (Italy). He studied Physics at the University of Freiburg i. Br. and received his PhD in 1988. He got his “Habilitation” (Dr. rer. nat. habil.) from the same University in 1994 and worked there as Associate Professor of Theoretical Physics until 2003. In 2004 he was appointed Professor of Theoretical Physics at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. In 2005 he was awarded an Innovation Fund grant to set up a Centre for Quantum Technology. In 2007 he was granted a South African Research Chair for Quantum Information Processing and Communication. Since March 2008 he is a member of the Board of the UKZN Innovation Company. At present, he is one of the Deputy Directors of the National Institute for Theoretical Physics.

He has published more than 90 papers in refereed journals. He is the co-author of a monograph on “The Theory of Open Quantum Systems”, that was published in 2002, reprinted as paperback in 2007, and is being translated in Russian at the moment. He is a member the Editorial Board of "Open Systems and Information Dynamics". He is the editor of several proceedings volumes and of special editions of scientific Journals. He has been invited to deliver more than 50 talks.

Prof. Petruccione has been working on the theory of open quantum systems, which is at the basis of many recent quantum technological applications. The miniaturization of technological devices necessitates manipulation of objects at the nanoscale level at which coherent quantum mechanical processes start to dominate the physical properties. The unavoidable interaction of these systems with their environment gives rise to dissipative mechanisms and a strong loss of quantum coherence, i.e. decoherence. Since perfect isolation of quantum systems is not possible, it is of central importance to incorporate the methods and tools of the theory of quantum systems in the exploration of quantum technologies. Among the basic tools of the new quantum technologies are quantum metrology, quantum control, quantum, communication and quantum computation.