Gian-Luca Oppo (born 5 December 1958) is an Italian physicist, known for his work in laser physics and nonlinear and quantum optics. Currently based in Glasgow, he holds the Chair of Natural Philosophy at the University of Strathclyde.
Education and career Oppo was born in Modena in 1958, and grew up in Lodi and Arezzo. He studied at the University of Florence and the National Institute of Optics, receiving his doctorate in physics in 1983 under the supervision of Tito Arecchi and Antonio Politi.Oppo, G.-L., Politi, A., Lippi, G. L., & Arecchi, F. T. Frequency pushing in lasers with injected signal. Physical Review A, 34(5), 4000-4007 (1986). https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.34.4000 He joined the University of Toronto in Canada in 1985 to work with Ray Kapral,Oppo, G.-L., & Kapral, R. Domain growth and nucleation in a discrete bistable system. Physical Review A, 36(12), 5820-5831 (1987). https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.36.5820 then Drexel University in Philadelphia in 1987, where he worked alongside Lorenzo Narducci and Jorge Tredicce.Oppo, G.-L., Tredicce, J. R., & Narducci, L. M, Dynamics of vibro-rotational CO2 laser transitions in a two-dimensional phase space, Optics Communications, 69(5-6), 393-397 (1989). https://doi.org/10.1016/0030-4018(89)90026-6 After a short period at the University of Nice (now Côte d%27Azur University) in 1989,Gil, L., Emilsson, K., & Oppo, G.-L. Dynamics of spiral waves in a spatially inhomogeneous Hopf bifurcation. Physical Review A, 45(2), R567-R470 (1992). https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.45.R567 he joined the Physics Department at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland, where he became Professor of Computational and Nonlinear Physics in 1998. Alongside Stephen Barnett and William Firth, he founded the Computational Nonlinear and Quantum Optics group, which was flagged 5* in the Research Assessment Exercise of 2001. His chair was supported by Silicon Graphics, Inc. from 2000 to 2005.Gomila, D., Zambrini, R., & Oppo, G.-L. Photonic Band-Gap Inhibition of Modulational Instabilities. Physical Review Letters, 92(25), 253904-1-4 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.92.253904 Since 2015, Oppo has been the 1796 Freeland Chair in Natural Philosophy at Strathclyde.
Honours and recognitions In 2011, Oppo was awarded the Occhialini Medal and Prize from the Institute of Physics and the Italian Physical Society, for "novel insights into nonlinear and quantum optical phenomena, especially spatio-temporal phenomena, achieved through the development and application of powerful techniques for small-scale computing". He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the Optical Society of America (now Optica), and the Institute of Physics.
Selected publications Politi, A., Oppo, G.-L., & Badii, R. Coexistence of conservative and dissipative behavior in reversible dynamical systems. Physical Review A, 33(6), 4055-4060 (1986). Coexistence of conservative and dissipative behavior in reversible dynamical systems Narducci, L. M., Scully, M. O., Oppo, G.-L., Ru, P., & Tredicce, J. R. Spontaneous emission and absorption properties of a driven three-level system. Physical Review A, 42(3), 1630-1649 (1990). Spontaneous emission and absorption properties of a driven three-level system Oppo, G.-L., Brambilla, M., & Lugiato, L. A. Formation and evolution of roll patterns in optical parametric oscillators, Physical Review A, 49(3), 2028-2032 (1994). Formation and evolution of roll patterns in optical parametric oscillators Livi, R., Franzosi, R., & Oppo, G.-L. Self-Localization of Bose-Einstein condensates in optical lattices via boundary dissipation. Physical Review Letters, 97, 060401 (2006). Self-Localization of Bose-Einstein Condensates in Optical Lattices via Boundary Dissipation Bao, H., Cooper, A., Rowley, M., Di Lauro, L., Totero Gongora, J. S., Chu, S. T., Little, B. E., Oppo, G.-L., Morandotti, R., Moss, D. J., Wetzel, B., Peccianti, M., & Pasquazi, A. Laser cavity-soliton microcombs. Nature Photonics 13, 384-389 (2019). Laser cavity-soliton microcombs Oppo, G.-L. Computational physics applied to photonic devices. La Rivista del Nuovo Cimento 49, 1-74 (2026). Computational physics applied to photonic devices
References