Materials science expertise

I am an expert on the growth of semiconductor nanowires, nanoclusters, thin films, and multi quantum-well structures using silicon, transparent conductive oxides (zinc oxide, AZO, tin oxide…), III-nitrides (AlGaN).

I control their optical properties by shrinking the material size (post-processing treatments, nanofabrication, ion implantation) or by introducing optically-active dopants (rare earth ions).

I characterize the structural properties of the materials (electron microscopies, secondary ion mass spectrometry).

I study the optical response of the fabricated devices looking at their photoluminescence, amplified spontaneous emission, nonlinear emission (second harmonic generation), absorption and reflection spectra.

Experimental techniques I master:

  • Growth processes
    • Electron Beam Evaporation
    • Magnetron sputtering
    • Ion Implantation
    • Molecular Beam Epitaxy
    • Furnace annealer and rapid thermal annealer
  • Nanofabrication
    • Electron Beam Litography
    • Focused Ion Beam
    • Photolitography
    • Reactive Ion Etching
  • Structural characterization
    • Scanning Electron Microscope
    • Energy Dispersive X-ray analysis
    • Transmission Electron Microscopy
    • Rutherford Back-scattering Spectrometry
    • Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry
    • Atomic Force Microscopy
    • Extended X-ray Absorption Fine Structure
  • Optical characterization
    • Photoluminescence and photoluminescence excitation spectroscopy with Ar, Ti:sapphire, He-Cd, Nd:YAG lasers, diode lasers and Xe lamp
    • Ultrafast spectroscopy (with ultrafast high power Ti:sapph laser, OPO, second, third and fourth harmonic crystals)
    • Gain characterization: Variable Stripe Length tecnhique
    • Time resolved analyses (also with streak camera)
    • Pump and probe spectroscopy
    • Low temperature analyses
    • Absorption and transmission measurements
    • Ellipsometry
  • Electrical characterization
  • Numerical calculations
    • Transfer Matrix method
    • FDTD (Lumerical)
  • Other competences
    • Computer softwares: Microsoft Office, OpenOffice, iWorks, web browsers, Origin, Gatan Digital microscope, XRump, Genplot, Trim, Latex
    • Operative systems: Microsoft Windows 7, Linux, Chrome OS, MacOS, Android, iOS
    • Programming languages: Fortran, Python
    • Web languages: XHTML, CSS, PHP, MySQL, Visual Basic
    • Website platforms: WordPress, e107