Mario Galletti defended successfully his PhD thesis on June 4, 2020, being awarded the top final grade of Approved with Distinction Cum Laude.

During his PhD, Mario worked on different topics ranging from optical parametric oscillators and amplifiers, laser-matter interaction and laser and plasma diagnostics. He performed research at the Laboratory for Intense Lasers, IST, at the VULCAN laser, Central Laser Facility (UK) and at the FLAME laser, INFN (Italy). He integrated the APPLAuSE 2016 class and joined GoLP for his thesis, under the supervision of Gonçalo Figueira (IST) and Marco Galimberti (CLF-STFC, UK).

In particular, Mario worked on the design and development of highly efficient fs/ps pumping stages in the visible, ultra-broadband OPA stages in the femtosecond and picosecond regime and the associated relative temporal diagnostics. He also investigated the experimental parameters behind Target Normal Sheath Acceleration, a laser-solid interaction technique for accelerating ions.

Mario authored and co-authored a large number of papers on these topics during his PhD, which together with his results and the discussion following the presentation made a very positive impression in the jury. The top grade of Approved with Distinction Cum Laude is only awarded to a very limited number of PhDs and requires unanimity of the jury members.

Congratulazioni, Mario!