Elena Goi

• Associate Investigator
• Friedrich Schiller University of Jena
• elena.goi@uni-jena.de
• +4901758970184
• @elena-goi-257a2582/

Research Interests

• Photonic and optical neural networks
• Neuromorphic and analog photonic computing
• Topological photonics and metamaterials
• Nanophotonic materials and 3D nanofabrication
• Light-matter interactions for optical information processing

Education

• 2018: PhD in Physics, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT University), Australia
• 2013: Master of Science in Solid State Physics, University of Trieste, Italy
• 2010: Bachelor of Science in Physics, University of Trieste, Italy

Achievements & Awards

• BMFTR NanoMatFutur Junior Research Group Grant (2026) – “PicPhotMat: Engineered materials for picophotonic analog computing”
• Excellence Fellowship, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Germany (2025)
• NSFC Surface General Project Grant, National Natural Science Foundation of China (2025)
• NSFC Youth Science Foundation Project, National Natural Science Foundation of China (2022)
• Rising Star Award, Shanghai Science and Technology Commission (2021)
• Innovation Action Plan Grant, Shanghai Natural Science Foundation (2021)

Themes

• Manipulate

Elena is a photonics researcher specializing in topological and neuromorphic photonics, with a strong focus on light-matter interaction at the sub-nanoscale. She is currently establishing her junior research group at the Abbe Center of Photonics, Friedrich-Schiller University Jena. Her research emphasizes the interaction of light with tailored photonic structures and engineered materials designed for computing and information processing applications.

She completed her PhD at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, where her work focused on the development of three-dimensional photonic crystals for the study of topological photonic systems. During her time at the University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, China, where she served as an Associate Professor, Elena developed neuromorphic information processing architectures and optical neural networks implemented with nanoprinted photonics elements.

In her current role, Elena’s research is driven by interdisciplinary collaboration at the intersection of physics, photonics, and computation. She combines fundamental studies of engineered materials and their interaction with complex optical fields, with the development of functional architectures for neuromorphic and optical computing, exploring how engineered photonic structures can enable efficient, high-speed, and energy-efficient information processing. Her work is motivated by advancing photonic platforms that bridge fundamental optical science with emerging technologies for next-generation computing and intelligent information processing.

Current Projects

• PicPhotMat – Engineered materials for picophotonic analog computing (BMFTR NanoMatFutur)
• Large-scale diffractive neural networks and optical AI architectures, including reflective, multi-channel, multi-wavelength, and polarization-sensitive DNNs
• Nonlinear optical neural networks
• Hybrid optical-digital neural systems
• Topological photonics, Weyl photonic crystals, and nanophotonic metamaterials
• Volumetric and reconfigurable optical neural networks for inference and wavefront processing
• Advanced optimization, robustness, and physics-informed training strategies for diffractive neural networks