Group Members
Daniela Diamare (PhD student)
Adnan Mehonic (PhD student)
Hazel Kitching (EngD student)
Past Members
Dr Ijaz Ahmed
Dr Harith Saleh
Dr Paul French
Dr Costas Chryssou
Frederic Lucarz
Hasitha Jayatilleka
Visitors
Research
Welcome to the Photonic Materials laboratory at UCL.
Our group’s research focuses on novel ways to generate or manipulate light, with a particular emphasis on silicon-based photonics. We are also interested in nanostructured materials for electronics applications, and in self-assembled nanostructures.
The principal aim of silicon photonics is to overcome the major current limitations of microelectronics by manipulating photons rather than electrons. Using silicon as the material system allows us to integrate photonics and microelectronics, and to exploit existing silicon processing technology and know-how.
At present, most of the components required for silicon photonics exist (waveguides, modulators, filters, detectors), but the missing link is a silicon-based optical source. Our work is focused on silicon-based light emitters to fill this gap.
Silicon is a very inefficient light emitter, thanks to its indirect band gap. This requires us to develop techniques to modify its optical and electronic properties. Currently, we are working in the following areas:
Silicon-based resistive RAMs/memristors
Self-assembled nanostructures
Si nanocluster-sensitised rare-earths
Electrically-pumped luminescent Si waveguides
MEMS-based optical buffers
Optical & electrical properties of silicon nanoclusters
Luminescent dislocations in silicon
We have current funding from EPSRC, in collaboration with the University of Manchester, Imperial College London and the University of Surrey, to investigate luminescent silicon nanoclusters. We work closely with the Optoelectronics Research Centre at the University of Southampton, and our group was a member of the LANCER European FP6 consortium, which developed planar waveguide devices based on silicon nanocluster-sensitised erbium ions. We have recently been awarded research funding to work with the University of Southampton to develop optical buffers based on novel III-V MEMS devices.
If you are interested in joining the lab as a PhD student, please contact me.
UCL Photonic Materials Lab