Introduction / mission

It is fascinating how materials properties at the nanoscale can be radically changed by means of size, crystal structure or surface states. We focus on new nanomaterial systems and investigate their properties.

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Fascinating nanowires and exciting research areas

Organisational profile

Our research group exploits the properties of new nanomaterials; their unusual structural, optical, thermal, and electronic properties for future applications. Research in our group centers around nanowires since these offer an unprecedented level of flexibility and control. The versatility of their material composition allows envisioning new applications in chemistry, physics, engineering science and bioscience.

Nanowires are one-dimensional structures with a diameter typically in the range 10-100 nanometers and a length of several micrometers. Our sophisticated control of the Vapor-Liquid-Solid (VLS) growth mechanism offers many possibilities for nanowire design in terms of dimensions, material composition, distribution of doping elements and presence of junctions.

We focus on group III-V semiconductors such as GaAs, InP, and InSb and on Si. Highlights of our research include the development of synergetic growth (where the growth rate of neighbouring wires is enhanced), the formation of twinning superlattices (that affect optical and thermal transport properties), and the formation of nanowires with hexagonal (wurtzite) crystal structures. A new direction in our group is the transfer of the crystal and defect structure of III-V materials to Si by means of epitaxy. This has recently led to the growth of defect-free wurtzite Si. of size, crystal structure or surface states. We focus on new nanomaterial systems and investigate their properties.