PLUTO
PLasmonic Ultra-fast Tunneling Optoelectronics
Supervisor: Eric LE MOAL | Employer: Universté Paris-Saclay | 3i dimension: interdisciplinary;international 📥 PLUTO
Contact: eric.le-moal@universite-paris-saclay.frAbstract: Integrating plasmonics into nanodevices requires electrically driven nanosources. Tunnel junctions enable electrons to excite plasmons, creating fast, compact light sources. Despite these highly desirable features, their potential and scope is still underexploited in particular due to low efficiencies. The emission rate of plasmon sources is limited by low junction currents. Therefore we aim to study molecular-scale plasmonic tunneling junctions of the form of metal–molecule–metal junctions with tunable barriers enabling nonlinear emission effects such as non-classical emission statistics (bunching), intermittent emissions (flickering), overbias emissions, and unexplained spatial correlations between distant emission points. A molecular approach in this context is complementary to widely explored metal oxide barriers because by changing the molecular structure, we can control the tunneling barrier shape, control the tunneling mechanism, and dielectric properties of the junctions.
Project Objectives
The proposed project fulfills both the international (primary) and interdisciplinary dimensions, as it involves a collaboration between a chemistry laboratory in the Netherlands and a physics laboratory in France. The PhD supervisor at the Institute of Molecular Sciences in Orsay is a physicist, while the 3i co-supervisor in the Department of Molecules & Materials at the University of Twente is a chemist. The recruited PhD student will spend 12 months of their PhD in the 3i co-supervisor's group, training in the synthesis of organic molecules and their deposition on surfaces. During the 24 months spent in France, the student will use scanning probe microscopy and optical microscopy to perform the measurements described in the project (see Gantt chart in Fig. 2). The benefits of this international and interdisciplinary collaboration are numerous (see diagram in Fig. 3). These outcomes include the training of interdisciplinary students, the founding and strengthening of a collaboration between our two laboratories, the expansion of our areas of expertise through skills transfer, potential applications for European calls for project and network funding, and the organization of binational workshops. Furthermore, the project's scientific results will be published in open access journals with peer review and presented at international conferences.
Host Laboratory: ISMO 3i Host Laboratory: University of Twente, Enschede, NL
Specific skills and requirements
Pre-requisite: TO BE UPDATED - REFER TO PDF
Advantageous: TO BE UPDATED - REFER TO PDF
Biographies
Thesis Director Short Bio: Eric Le Moal is CNRS researcher at the Institute of Molecular Sciences of Orsay (ISMO). He has been in the Nanophysics@Surfaces group since 2011, where he leads the Excitonics research axis. He obtained his doctorate in physics from Sorbonne Université UPMC in 2007, and was a postdoc at the University of Bonn (Humboldt Fellow) and at the Fresnel Institute in Marseille. His work focuses on the STM-induced luminescence (STML) of plasmonic nanostructures, organic molecules and 2D semiconductors. He has expertise in plasmonics, excitonics and in instrumental development of optical microscopy. He has been the PI and co-PI of two national (ANR) projects on STML of organic molecules and van der Waals heterostructures, respectively. He has supervised or co-supervised 5 PhD students and 3 Postdocs. He has co-authored 40 papers and 3 patents. He received the CNRS bronze medal in 2016.
3i Co-supervisor Short Bio: Christian Nijhuis received his Ph.D. from the University of Twente in 2006 (Cum Laude; top 5%) under the supervision of Profs Jurriaan Huskens and David Reinhoudt. In the group of Professor George M. Whitesides at Harvard University, as a postdoctoral research fellow, he developed a platform for measurements of charge transport across layers that are one molecule thick. In 2010, he joined the Department of Chemistry at the National University of Singapore and was promoted to Assoc. Prof. in 2016. In 2020, he moved back to the University of Twente as Full Professor to start a new group, Hybrid Materials for Opto-Electronics. He has supervised, or is supervising, 35 PhD students and 22 postdocs. His research interests cover the areas of molecular electronics, plasmonic tunnel junctions, supramolecular chemistry, nanofabrication and (synchrotron based) surface science.
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