The Photonic Nanomaterials group opened in January 2020 at the central headquarters of Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia in Genoa. The group focuses on two research topics:
Developing infrared optoelectronic devices operating exploiting various nanomaterials: Nowadays, optoelectronics in the short-wave-infrared (SWIR) spectral range is gaining more importance thanks to the development of efficient and affordable photodetectors/cameras; thus, enabling a variety of applications, ranging from machine-visions systems for quality assurance to point-of-care testing. Nonetheless, many applications are still hindered by the lack of efficient and bright light-sources that can be coupled with dedicated detectors to perform fast hyperspectral imaging or analysis. For this reason, the research group is currently focusing on developing SWIR light-sources based on III-V semiconductor colloidal quantum dots (CQDs) or other heavy-metal free compositions. In fact, CQDs present desirable properties for SWIR optoelectronics, such as tunable emission, broadband optical absorption, fast photoluminescence lifetime and high photoluminescence quantum yield.
Integration of photonic components with colloidal quantum dots: colloidal quantum dots (CQDs) are a ground-breaking class of light-emitting nanomaterials, whose importance has been recognized with the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2023. CQDs are often exploited in an ensemble (e.g., as films), making use of their high photoluminescence efficiency and color tunability. Nonetheless, CQDs present desirable properties at the nanoscale too, for example, a QD acts as a single-photon emitter. Despite their ideal light-emission properties, CQDs present challenges in terms of light manipulation at the nanoscale. In fact, much like large size optoelectronic devices, at the nanoscale, light out-coupling, and more generally light-control, is of paramount importance and the only way to achieve it is to couple relatively small CQDs with large photonic nanostructures. Here, the different dimensions of the two components is the main bottleneck preventing integration and the research group focuses on the integration of emissive CQDs with a variety of different photonic nanostructures produced via either bottom-up or top-down approaches.
