Antonino LICCIARDELLO

Antonino Licciardello is currently full professor of Physical Chemistry at University of Catania. He graduated in Chemistry, magna cum laude, in 1981 and finished his PhD in Chemical Sciences in 1986 at University of Catania. After some post-doc and fellowships funded by ST Microelectronics and by Consorzio Catania Ricerche, in 1991 he became Assistant Professor of Physical Chemistry at Università di Catania. In 1998 he become Associate Professor of Physical Chemistry at Università di Catania. In 2014 he obtained the national habilitation to full professorship and he is full professor since january, 2018. Antonino has been visiting scientist at University of Muenster in 1989, 1991/92 (NATO fellowship) and 2016-17 (sabbatical leave), and at University of Mons-Hainaut in 2005 (FNRS funding).
He has been the Coordinator of the PhD School in Materials Science at University of Catania (2006-2012) and is currently member of the board of the International Doctorate in Chemical Sciences at University of Catania. He has been member of the national board of the Division of Physical Chemistry of the Italian Chemical Society and of the regional board ("Sezione Sicilia") of the Italian Chemical Society. He is member, since the first edition, of the Advisory Board of the biennial international Workshop "SIMS Europe", has been member of the International Committee of the Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry Conference (2009-2013), chaired the "18th International Conference on Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry - SIMS XVIII", Riva del Garda, Sept. 2011 and has been member of the scientific committees of the international SIMS conference series from 2009 to present.
Research
Antonino Licciardello authored about 120 scientific peer reviewed papers, one patent, about 150 conference contributions and gave about 30 invited lectures/seminars. His scientific interests are in physical chemistry of surfaces and thin films, with special focus on physico-chemical processes in ion-matter interaction, on the development and application of surface techniques (ToF-SIMS, GD-MS), and on surface engineering by means of different methods, ranging from interaction with fast particles to self assembly methods for the construction of supramolecular architectures with functional properties. Some of his scientific results have been published on high-ranking journals such as Nature Materials and Advanced Materials, and in 2011 one of his papers received the Beynon Prize Award.
In the framework of his research activity, Antonino Licciardello established collaborations with many research groups in Italy and abroad, and participated, as principal investigator, to several research projects funded by EU and national agencies.
Since the mid '80 he contributed to the introduction and development, at University of Catania, of the SIMS technique and, as leader of the Surface Engineering and Characterization Group at the Department of Chemistry, he is currently the responsible of the ToF-SIMS laboratory.