Prof. Dr. Aqua’s area of expertise is in Condensed matter physics, statistical physics and theoretical physics. Prof. Aqua thesis was in the field of statistical physics and charged fluids, both classical and quantum, using a formalism of resumed Mayer diagrams and the path integral. As a post-doc, he was interested in critical systems and their universality class in the presence of Coulombian interactions, developing soluble models and mean field theory. Since his recruitment as researcher, he has been interested in epitaxial growth. He has studied different systems, from quantum dots to nanowires, nanomembranes and 2D materials, in constant interaction with experiments for semiconductors such as Si, Ge, AlGaN, AlGaAs, etc. He has developed different tools, from non-linear analysis of surface diffusion equations, kinetic Monte Carlo simulations, nucleation theory, facet thermodynamics and analysis of growth instabilities, etc. He is author or co-author of more than 45 papers in peer-reviewed journals.
He has been involved in different French scientific projects with both theoretical and experimental groups. He is the head of the French Network on Epitaxy MatEpi.
Accolades:
2014 Ribaud Prize of the French Academy of Science
Website and Scientific profiles