Early career During his PhD in Dirk van der Marel's laboratory at the
University of Geneva, Carbone analyzed the interplay between the electronic structure and the magnetism of
manganese monosilicide by means of X-rays and
neutron spectroscopy. He also studied the kinetic and potential energy changes associated to the superconducting
phase transition in
cuprates by measuring the material's color changes across the
critical temperature. As a
postdoctoral researcher in
Ahmed Zewail's laboratory at the
California Institute of Technology, he developed new methods based on the use of ultrafast electrons and laser pulses for the investigation of materials in out of equilibrium conditions. His most notable result was the demonstration of a new method to perform femtosecond-resolved electron spectroscopy in a
Transmission Electron microscope. This technique opened a new field of research in the following years leading to several breakthroughs in the observation of materials, molecules and nanostructures under laser irradiation conditions.
Current activities Carbone currently heads the Laboratory for Ultrafast Microscopy and Electron Scattering (LUMES) at
EPFL. The LUMES is active in various research fields: • Physics of phase transitions in strongly correlated solids: in this area, the group of Prof. Carbone reported the first real-time observation of the coherent oscillations of a superconducting condensate triggered by the superconducting to normal-state phase transition-induced laser pulses. • Imaging and controlling nano-confined electromagnetic fields: various new methods were developed to obtain real-space/real-time movies of light confined in nanostructures. These results are of particular importance both for fundamental aspects and applications in optoelectronic devices. In a 2019 report, the LUMES demonstrated a new quantum holography technique allowing to achieve attosecond/nanometer combined temporal and spatial resolution in mapping electromagnetic fields. • Using light to engineer the wave function of free electrons: the LUMES proposed techniques using light pulses to manipulate the wave function of individual electrons at the attosecond temporal scale. These experiments have offered novel interesting perspectives for fundamental physics studies, but also for application in nuclear
energy harvesting. • Ultrafast manipulation of spins in magnetic materials: this project aims at using light pulses to manipulate the spin texture in exotic magnetic materials such as
skyrmion-hosting solids. Carbone's laboratory recently demonstrated the possibility to write and erase skyrmions with light pulses as well as to map the dynamical evolution of the magnetic ordering across the phase transition. == Recognition ==