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Nanostructured Hybrid Systems

Nanostructured Hybrid Systems group at CINN

The Nanostructured Hybrid Systems group develops its research, mainly of experimental character, about the physical properties of a wide variety of nanomaterials with a controlled structure and geometry. These properties can be classified in the following two fields:

  • Properties of nanostructured magnetic systems.
  • Quantum Nano-Optics and plasmonics in bidimensional materials.
Magnetic vortices and antivortices in hexagonal arrays of permalloy observed by Magnetic Force Microscopy.
Magnetic vortices and antivortices in hexagonal arrays of permalloy observed by Magnetic Force Microscopy.

Properties of nanostructured magnetic systems

The research of the group is focused in the study about how the magnetic properties of technological interest are modified in a controlled way when the material dimensions are confined at the nanometer scale in one or several special directions. It includes thin film systems, multilayers where different types of materials (that is, hybrids) are alternate, or arrays of ordered elements patterned by lithography.

Skyrmion/antiskyrmion – like topological defects in the stripe domains of hexagonal arrays of NdCo.
Skyrmion/antiskyrmion – like topological defects in the stripe domains of hexagonal arrays of NdCo.
“Nanolight” refraction by an atomic thick prism (one Graphene monolayer).
“Nanolight” refraction by an atomic thick prism (one Graphene monolayer).

Quantum Nano-Optics and plasmonics in bidimensional materials

Nano-Optics is one of the research fields of the group; it is dedicated to the study of processes like the excitation and manipulation of polaritons – hybrid light matter excitations – in Van der Waals materials such as Graphene or hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN). Recently, the study has been extended to polar Van der Waals materials showing strongly anisotropic properties like a-MoO3, in which near-field images taken by the group using scattering-type Scanning Near Field Optical Microscopy (s-SNOM) has revealed for the first time the anisotropic propagation of phonon polaritons in the plane (hyperbolic and elliptical propagation), which also show unprecedented low losses.

Another research line of the group is focussed on the design, simulation and optical characterization of semiconductor/piezoelectric hybrid actuators used to modify, via elastic strain engineering, the physical properties of nanomaterials in a reversible manner. This strategy includes tailoring of both the propagation of phonon-polaritons and the emission properties of single photon sources in Van der Waals materials.