Dr. Maddalena Patrini is a Researcher in Experimental Physics at the University of Pavia. She obtained her Ph.D in Physics in 1996 at the University of Pavia.with a thesis on the “Study and characterization of epitaxial III-V semiconductor heterostructures by means of spectroscopic ellipsometry and FFT-FIR”. From 1998 to 2000 she was post-doc researcher for Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa and Saint-Gobain Recherche-Italia about clusters supported in amorphous matrix. The main research interests are the optical properties of semiconductors and low.dimensional structures by means of optical spectroscopies, in particular: the analysis of epitaxial films, heterostructures and quantum structures; the investigation of electronic and vibrational properties; the compositional and structural characterization. Since 2001 she is involved in the experimental activity concerning the linear and nonlinear optical properties of photonic crystals. She is coauthor of about 80 publications in refereed journals and conference proceedings