Affiliation: Technical University of Applied Sciences Wildau

Francesco Villasmunta was born in Bari, Italy. He earned his BSc in Physics from the University of Bari Aldo Moro in 2015, his MSc in Materials Science and Technology from the University of Rome Tor Vergata in 2018, and his M.Eng. in Photonics from the Technical University of Applied Sciences Wildau (TH-Wildau), Germany, also in 2018. Currently, he is pursuing a PhD at Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus-Senftenberg (BTU) in collaboration with TH-Wildau, Germany. 

Since 2018, he has worked as a scientific researcher at TH-Wildau and held a guest scientist position at IHP: Leibniz Institute for High-Performance Microelectronics. His research focuses on silicon photonic interconnections, with expertise in deep reactive ion etching (DRIE), including both Bosch and cryogenic ICP-RIE techniques, as well as optical simulations and metrology. 

Francesco has authored several publications and filed a patent application for integrated optical waveguides. He was also awarded the TH-Wildau Research Prize for 2025.