His research focuses on electronic structure methods for adsorbate–metal interfaces, with the goal of accurately describing excited states at surfaces. A central challenge in this area is balancing accuracy against cost: methods precise enough to capture excited-state physics are typically too expensive to evaluate repeatedly, as required for molecular dynamics. Francesco aims to address this trade-off through quantum embedding, which lowers the cost of a rigorous treatment by restricting it to a well-chosen subsystem, defined either in real space or in Hilbert space, while treating the surrounding environment more approximately. To this end, he combines density functional theory with many-body methods such as the random phase approximation (RPA).

We're excited to have Francesco on board and look forward to his contributions to the group!