Our goal is to understand physical phenomena in nanosystems and to explore their application in technologies some of which have yet to be imagined. For this we develop and use optical and optoelectronic techniques with ultrashort temporal and ultrasmall spatial resolution.  

Ultrafast plus ultrasmall equals great prospects

The ultrafast phenomena that take place at the nanoscale have far-reaching implications for materials and systems and can lead to novel applications in fields such as thermal management, light harvesting, photodetection, data communication and quantum technologies. Currently, one of the main material systems under investigation in the UDNS group is that of quantum materials, in particular, two-dimensional layered materials and hybrid Van der Waals heterostructures. The group studies the exciting interplay between different carriers of energy/heat/information in these systems, such as photons, electrons, phonons, spins and other (quasi-)particles. The research is also branching out to one-dimensional systems.

A significant effort in the group is devoted to the investigation of flow and transduction of electronic and phononic heat in nanoscale systems. This fundamental work is performed mainly within the framework of the ERC Starting Grant project CUHL (Controlling Ultrafast Heat in Layered materials) and a joint experimental-computational Spanish Mineco project (STEAMY) towards understanding and steering heat flow in 2D materials. Supported by an ERC Proof of Concept Grant (COOLGRAELE), the group also explores applying this understanding towards thermal management applications.

The group also works in the field of terahertz technologies, and in particular nonlinear terahertz photonics, where quantum materials such as graphene and topological insulators, as well as metamaterial systems, turn out to be an excellent platform with strongly improved figures of merit. The UDNS group is furthermore strongly involved in developing novel ultrafast optical and optoelectronic microscopy techniques, with a broad range of techniques currently available in the lab.