Assistant professor Alberto Curto from the Department of Applied Physics has received a NWO Start-Up grant. He researches nanophotonics and is trying to make ultra-small optical and electronic circuits just 1 nanometer thick. Visible light can be manipulated with that technique on a nanoscale. That goes far beyond the normal diffraction of optical wavelengths.
The active control of light waves at nanoscale is the holy grail for researchers in this field, but it is extremely difficult to substantially change the high density of free electrons in metals. Curto will demonstrate use monolayer semiconductors for this purpose.