[FPU2019] Development of photonic nanostructures

The objective of the project will be the integration of two dimensional (2D) semiconductor metal oxides in metasurfaces for the development of active nanophotonic structures with lighting and sensing functionalities. 
In this project we will focus on the of 2D semiconductors because they are endowed with unique physical properties, such as a native sizeable bandgap, a relatively large in-plane carrier mobility, valley-dependent optoelectronics, strong light-matter interaction, and indirect to direct bandgap transition in monolayer crystals, which makes them ideal candidates for ultracompact optoelectronic and photonic applications. Due to strong spatial confinement of carriers and reduced dielectric screening of Coulomb interactions, electron and holes in 2D-semiconductors are tightly bound, forming exciton and multi-exciton complexes with binding energies up to 0.5-1 eV, more than one order of magnitude larger than in conventional III-V 2D quantum well nanostructures. Currently most of the work in 2D-semiconductors is performed using small micron size flakes obtained from mechanically exfoliated single crystals, however there is no doubt that it will be much more advantageous to be able to prepare by deposition large surface 2D-structures that will enable also its integration in devices. The successful candidate will join an active experimental group of research funded with national and european grants. The project is markedly multidisciplinary and involves the optical design of the nanophotonic 2D-based structures as well its preparation using laser processing techniques, and finally the study of their structural and optical properties. Within the proposed project we aim to prepare metal-dielectric metasurfaces with light emission and wavelength tunability. Some of the concepts that will be used in the present project are reflected in our recent publications.  
(1) J. Martín-Sánchez, et al. , Nano Research (2018)  
(2) G. Baraldi, et al., Adv. Mater. Interfaces, 5, 1800241 (2018). 
(3) J. Toudert, et al. Optics Express 26, 34043 (2018).
For more publications see: https://lpg.io.csic.es/publications/
Contact rosalia.serna@csic.es