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dr. Andrea Baldi

Associate Professor, Faculty of Science, Photo Conversion Materials

Associate Professor, LaserLaB, LaserLaB - Energy

Personal information

Andrea received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in Chemistry from the University of Rome “La Sapienza”. He then moved to Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, where he obtained his PhD in Condensed Matter Physics in 2010. During his time in Amsterdam, he studied the properties of metal hydrides for hydrogen storage and smart windows applications.

He subsequently worked as a postdoctoral scholar at Stanford University, where he developed imaging and spectroscopic techniques to study individual nanoparticles for applications in energy conversion and storage.

In 2015, he returned to the Netherlands as a tenure-track senior scientist at the Dutch Institute for Fundamental Energy Research (DIFFER) in Eindhoven, where he led his research group on Nanomaterials for Energy Applications.

Since March 2020, he is a tenured associate professor in the Physics and Astronomy department at VU Amsterdam. His group uses optical resonances in metal nanoparticles to activate, control, and detect chemical and physical processes at the nanoscale

Research

In our research group, we synthesize metal and semiconducting nanostructures and characterize their optical response using a range of spectroscopy and microscopy techniques, both in ensemble experiments and at the single particle level. We are particularly interested in studying nanomaterials for light-energy conversion (photocatalysis, photochemistry, photothermal heating, …) and optical sensing (gas detection, surface-enhanced Raman scattering, …).

Andrea Baldi - Photoconversion Materials section - Department of Physics and Astronomy - YouTube

Education

B.Sc. & M.Sc.: Chemistry, Università di Roma La Sapienza, 2005.
Ph.D.: Physics, VU University Amsterdam, 2010.

Teaching

Baldi is involved in teaching in several bachelor and master courses in Physics and in Science and Business Innovation. In particular, he teaches in the courses "Sustainable Energy: Biomass and Biofuels", "Current Sustainable Energy Technologies", "Innovation Project Energy", "Emergent Energy Materials", and "Materials for Light-Energy Conversion". He also regularly supervises bachelor and master research projects.

Grants

2018: DIFFER strategic funds for intergroup collaboration for the proposal entitled “Cavity enhanced nanochemistry”, shared with prof. Jaime Gómez Rivas at TU/e (200 k€).

2018: NWO funds for DIFFER-AMOLF collaboration for the proposal entitled “Direct versus indirect mechanism of plasmon-driven catalysis”, shared with prof. Erik Garnett at AMOLF (250 k€).

2017: VIDI grant from the Dutch Research Council (NWO) for the project "Hot! Hot! Hot! Fundamentals of Plasmon Catalysis" (800 k€).

2014: FOM Program for the proposal entitled ”Photosynthesis of nano- materials: developing nanostructured photocatalysts for solar fuel generation using light”, shared with prof. Erik Garnett at AMOLF (1.44 M€).

2011: Fellowship for Young Energy Scientists (YES!) from the Dutch Foundation for Fundamental Research on Matter (FOM) (483 k€).

Ancillary activities

Member of the Organizing Committee of the 2021 Dutch Physics Conference ”Physics @ Veldhoven” (representing Materials Physics).

2020-2022: chair of the NWO committee for Incentive Grants for Women in STEM.

Since March 2020: chair of the Opleidingscommissie (OLC) for the bachelor and master programs of Science and Business Innovation (SBI).

Since January 2019: member of the NWO working group advisory committee "Physics for Technology and Instrumentation".

Since December 2018: member of the NWO working group advisory committee "Chemistry of Materials".

2018-2020: member of the Platform Academische Natuurkunde and of its core team.

December 2018: organizer and chair of the focus session “Plasmonics for Chemistry” at CHAINS in Veldhoven, Netherlands.

2017: initiator of the DIFFER diversity taskforce.