Research updates
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2024
October
Registration is open for the the 3rd Quantum Optics and Nanophotonics Winter School 15-17 January 2024. The school will be held on the 15th and 16th of January 2025. Registration deadline is on the 18th of December 2024, the early-bird deadline is on the 30th of November 2024.
October
We welcome a new PhD student in our group, Owen Wolley, who, as become a tradition now, has done a summer placement with our group before joining the team.
September
Congratulations to Oscar Hutchings for successfully defending his thesis.
September
We hosted the second edition of the workshop series on 'Near-field Optical Imaging and Spectroscopy' this time held at the Wave at the University of Sheffield on the 13th of September 2024. The meeting attracted more than 30 researchers, this time mostly specialists in near-field techniques unlike in the first meeting in 2023 attended by many researchers curious to learn about the new methods. This event was sponsored by Attocube and UKRI.
January
We hosted the 2nd Quantum Optics and Nanophotonics Winter School 15-17 January 2024. The school was attended by more than 100 researchers.
2023
October
We welcome two new PhD students in our group, Tim Chester-Parsons and Oscar Palma Chaundler. Both came to our group through previous projects including summer placements.
September
The first edition of the new workshop series on 'Near-field Optical Imaging and Spectroscopy' held at the University of Sheffield on the 13th of September 2023 was a great success and was attended by more than 60 researchers. This event was sponsored by Attocube and UKRI.
July
Registration is open for the first edition of the new workshop series on 'Near-field Optical Imaging and Spectroscopy' that will be held at the University of Sheffield on the 13th of September 2023. We will host six invited talks, several contributed talks and a poster session. This event is sponsored by Attocube and UKRI.
We plan to bring together researchers working on optical nano-imaging and nano-spectroscopy with applications in a range of systems from solid state to biology. Techniques such as s-SNOM, nanoFTIR, AFM-IR and other tip-enhanced methods will be discussed.
The first workshop will be held on the 13th of September 2023 with an optional visit to see our near-field optical imaging and spectroscopy facility, NOSC, on the 12th of September.
February
Charalambos Louca successfully passed his PhD viva! Congratulations!
2022
July
The set-up for 2D Materials Fabrication Hub has been installed. This is a flake transfer set-up with additional manipulators with the entire system placed in a nitrogen-purged glovebox. It will allow fabrication of clean heterostructure samples and work with air-sensitive materials.
May
The set-up for Near-field Optical imaging and Spectroscopy Center has been installed. This is a unique set-up allowing nano-imaging and nano-spectroscopy in a wide range from visible and near-infrared to mid-infrared.
April
Our new paper on transition metal dichalcogenide dimer nano-antennas for tailored light–matter interactions has appeared in ACS Nano. Congratulations to Panaiot who was at the centre of this project!
New important collaborations which we will take further are with Dr Yue (Christina) Wang from York whose contribution is in fabrication of advanced nano-photonic structures. Very important collaborations in Sheffield include Nic Mullin and Jamie Hobbs, helping this work with advanced AFM techniques.
See a copy of the manuscript here
A new postdoctoral researcher Dr Paul Bouteyre has joined the group this month. Paul will work on advanced optical characterisation and design of atomically thin van der Waals heterostructures and nano-photonic structures made from layered materials. Paul is funded by the EPSRC Programme Grant.
March
A new postdoctoral researcher Dr Xuerong Hu has joined the group this month. Xuerong will work on a wide range of fabrication projects of atomically thin van der Waals heterostructures and nano-photonics. Xuerong is funded by the EPSRC Programme Grant.
2021
November
Several fully funded PhD projects are available in the group. See the description on the FindAPhD website. Send enquiries through FindAPhD or directly to a.tartakovskii@sheffield.ac.uk.
A new postdoctoral researcher Dr Yadong Wang is arriving in the group this month. Yadong will work on atomically thin van der Waals heterostructures and near-field optical spectroscopy using a new Neaspec instrument arriving in January 2022. Yadong is funded by the EPSRC Twistronics grant.
October
Our new paper on bright single photon emitters in monolayer WSe2 coupled to nano-antennas has appeared in Nature Communications! Congratulations to Luca and Panaiot who drove this research for a long time with a few successes on the way; also in Nature Communications and ACS Photonics.
Thanks to Sheffield’s collaborators Catherine, Alistair and Professor Mark Fox, as well as external collaborators from Imperial and LMU Munich.
See the manuscript on nature.com
September
A new PhD student Sam Randerson has joined the group. Sam will work on nano-photonics with layered materials and near-field optical spectroscopy on a new Neaspec instrument arriving in January 2022.
Two 30-month postdoctoral research associate positions in fabrication and optics of 2D materials are available in the group. The closing date is 15 November 2021.
May
A new scientific officer post arises from a large capital equipment grant designed to establish and run the interdisciplinary Near-Field Optical Spectroscopy Centre in Sheffield. The initial funding for this post is 36 months.
The scientific officer position is essential for the successful operation of the Centre in the future, and funding will be sought to support this post beyond the initial 36 months. The closing date is the 14 of June 2021.
See further details at jobs.ac.uk
The scientific officer (SO) will be central to the smooth operation of the experimental set-up, and will become a leading expert in these pioneering techniques, consolidating on the existing near-field optical spectroscopy methods as well as pushing the technological boundaries and developing new bespoke experimental and data analysis methods.
April
A 30-month postdoctoral research associate in twistronics post is available in the group with the closing date of 21 May 2021.
This post arises from a joint project between the University of Sheffield and the University of Manchester on twistronics, a revolutionary approach for creating ‘designer’ materials. In this approach, a wide variety of properties in few-atom-thick materials can be controlled by the relative rotation (twist) between the adjacent atomic layers, a unique feature available only in 2D materials.
Further advances will be made to couple such materials to various photonic devices, which will be designed and fabricated in this project.
2020
November
Our first paper on atomically thin magnetic materials has been published in Nature Communications. Its title is ‘Interplay between spin proximity effect and charge-dependent exciton dynamics in MoSe2/CrBr3 van der Waals heterostructures’. Congratulations to Tom and Dan!
This is collaboration between Sheffield, Manchester, Exeter (including their Extremag facility, where we were the first users), International Iberian Nanotechnology Laboratory, and Tsukuba.
See the manuscript on nature.com
Our new paper on ‘Strong exciton-photon coupling in large area MoSe2 and WSe2 heterostructures fabricated from two-dimensional materials grown by chemical vapor deposition’ has been published in IoP 2D Materials. Congratulations to Dan, Armando, Tom and Toby!
This is collaboration between Sheffield, UNIST and Oxford. Important internal collaboration with the organic optoelectronic devices group of Professor David Lidezey in Sheffield too.
See the manuscript in IOP Science
October
Alexander Tartakovskii was awarded a new £420,000 EPSRC grant to work on quantum materials by twistronics. This is part of a £1.7 million joint grant with the University of Manchester led by Professors R Gorbachev, S Haigh and V Falko.
September
Our new paper on ‘Emergence of highly linearly polarized interlayer exciton emission in MoSe2/WSe2 heterobilayers with transfer-induced layer corrugation’ has been published in ACS Nano. Congratulations to Evgeny, Oleksandr and Tillmann!
This is collaboration between Sheffield and Manchester. Important collaboration with the Professor Jamie Hobbs’ scanning probe analysis group in Sheffield too.
August
Alexander Tartakovskii was awarded a new £1.6 million EPSRC Strategic Equipment grant for the Near-Field Optical Spectroscopy Centre. This centre will make available truly non-invasive techniques relying on weak optical probes.
A new research facility based on such an instrument will enable a unique suite of novel optical techniques capable of 10nm spatial resolution, 50 to 1,000 times below the optical diffraction limit. The techniques are based on the light focusing with a very sharp tip, used in atomic force microscopy (AFM).
More information on these instruments
Our new paper on ‘Dielectric nanoantennas for strain engineering in atomically thin two-dimensional semiconductors’ has been published in ACS Photonics. Congratulations to Luca, Panaiot and Armando. This is a collaboration between Sheffield, Imperial, Konstanz and LMU Munich.
See the manuscript in ACS Photonics
May
Our new paper on ‘Large area chemical vapour deposition grown transition metal dichalcogenide monolayers automatically characterized through photoluminescence imaging’ is published in Npj 2D Materials and Applications. Congratulations to Toby, Armando, Evgeny and Sam who contributed a lot to this technical development. This is collaboration between Sheffield and UNIST (Ulsan, Korea).
See the open access manuscript in Npj 2D Materials and Applications
Our new paper on ‘Electrically pumped WSe2-based light-emitting van der Waals heterostructures embedded in monolithic dielectric microcavities’ is published in IoP 2D Materials. A lot of previous members contributed to this work, that was finished by Armando. Congratulations! This work is primarily result of collaboration between Sheffield and Manchester.
See the open access manuscript IoP 2D Materials
April
We posted our four new papers on arxiv.org. Two will soon appear in press in IoP 2D Materials and Npj 2D Materials and Applications.
2019
November
Our new paper on ‘Enhanced light-matter interaction in an atomically thin semiconductor coupled with dielectric nano-antennas’ is published in Nature Communications. Congratulations to Luca and Panaiot who put a lot of effort in this work. This is collaboration between Sheffield, Imperial, Dortmund and LMU Munich.
October
Congratulations to Luca Sortino for successful defence of his PhD thesis and we welcome a new PhD student Oscar Hutchings to our group.
September
Kick-off meeting in Dortmund for our EPSRC Centre-to-Centre project with Professor Manfred Bayer’s group.
Congratulations to Tom Lyons for successful defence of his PhD thesis. Well done!
Here's Tom just before his viva on 24 September 2019.
August
Evgeny Alexeev, in collaboration with Ossila Ltd, has developed a guide for ‘Viscoelastic transfer of 2D material using PDMS’.
See the video and step-by-step description on the Ossila website
July
We have been awarded an EPSRC Centre-to-Centre grant of £1.4 million to initiate collaborative research into light-matter interactions in quantum nano-materials with the Technical University of Dortmund. The centre is led by Professor Manfred Bayer.
See the University’s press release
Postdoc position openings will follow soon, including a position to work on 2D materials.
Congratulations to Alessandro Catanzaro for successful defence of his PhD thesis on 25 July 2019. Well done!
May
Our new paper on ‘The valley Zeeman effect in inter and intra-valley trions in monolayer WSe2’ is published in Nature Communications. This is collaboration between Sheffield, Konstanz, Manchester, Exeter and NIMS. Congratulations to Tom Lyons who was the main drive behind this work.
See the open access manuscript on nature.com
March
Our latest paper has just appeared in Nature
We report on how two monolayer TMDs hybridise when stacked, the role of the moiré pattern in the atomic registry, and importantly how all of these are controlled by the twist between the layers. The paper is also on the Nature website.
Our paper, and several other studies published last week are also accompanied with a News and Views article.
2018
Our new paper on ‘Valley coherent exciton-polaritons in a monolayer semiconductor’ is published in Nature Communications. This is collaboration between Sheffield, Clermont-Ferrand, Oxford and Manchester.