Twistoptics: Manipulating Light-Matter Interactions at the Nanoscale with Twisted van der Waals Materials

Descripción del proyecto

La «twistóptica» cuántica aprovecha pilas de capas torcidas de materiales de van der Waals

La twistrónica es un campo de nueva aparición que aprovecha el apilamiento y la torsión de diferentes materiales bidimensionales para modificar sus propiedades eléctricas. El ambicioso proyecto TWISTOPTICS, financiado por el Consejo Europeo de Investigación, abrirá nuevos caminos en el campo de la «twistóptica», que aprovecha pilas de capas torcidas de materiales de van der Waals. Estos materiales tienen propiedades exóticas como, por ejemplo, una fuerte anisotropía en el plano o una propagación de la luz dependiente de la dirección (no uniforme en todas las direcciones) que se pueden dirigir apilando y girando dos placas de un material de van der Waals. El equipo desarrollará una plataforma tecnológica para la manipulación activa de nanoluz y la empleará para diseñar y fabricar nanodispositivos funcionales, abriendo el campo de la twistóptica cuántica.

Objetivo

Van der Waals (vdW) materials are ideal platforms to host light at the nanoscale (nanolight) with unprecedented properties such as strong in-plane anisotropy, arbitrarily large momenta and high density of optical states, opening the door to develop planar optical nanodevices compatible with current on-chip technologies. Remarkably, the in-plane anisotropic propagation of nanolight can be steered by stacking two slabs of a vdW material rotated with respect to each other, resulting, for example, in canalization along one specific direction. Inspired by this breakthrough in nano-optics, which extends the exciting prospects of twistronics to the optics realm, this ERC project aims to develop the field of Twistoptics, where stacks of twisted layers of vdW materials enable unprecedented active control of light and light-matter interactions at the nanoscale. In a first stage, we will carry out a study of the most fundamental optical phenomena in Twistoptics - reflection and refraction of nanolight in twisted vdW structures-, and develop a technological platform that will enable active manipulation of nanolight via strain fields. In a second stage, we will make use of this knowledge and technological capabilities to design and fabricate functional nanodevices to explore directional strong coupling between nanolight and molecular vibrations, as well as inter-subband transitions in 2D semiconductors -in order to develop quantum Twistoptics. This proposal envisions the modification of material properties and dynamics at the nanoscale and the realization of efficient and compact sources of IR radiation and polaritons working at room temperature. These fundamental scientific advances will be of enormous relevance for the development of new nanotechnologies that will have a broad impact in various fields, such as molecular nano-sensing, quantum nanosciences, or nano-chemistry, where active control of fundamental light-matter processes at the nanoscale is of vital importance.