2019 BIST Ignite Project: QEE2DUP

Quantum engineering of excitons in 2D materials from the bottom-up

The QEE2DUP project received a 2019 BIST Ignite Grant at the annual BIST Ignite Awards Ceremony held in March 2020.

QEE2DUP is presented with the 2019 BIST Ignite Grant by BIST Director Gabby Silberman

Project overview

The development of new quantum technologies and their application in fields such as computing or communications require the design of new materials which combine chemical synthesis, 2D material nanofabrication, and advanced optics. This is the challenge posed by the QEE2DUP project, led by Dr. Roshan Krishna Kumar (ICFO) and Dr. José Ramon Durán (ICN2) —who take over the leadership of Dr. Antoine Reserbat-Plantey (ICFO) and Dr. César Moreno (ICN2) during the seeding phase— . They will set out to design a new material capable of confining excitons – electronically neutral quasi-particles found in semiconductors and insulators – within graphene nanopores. This will allow for controlling the dynamics of excitons and answering fundamental questions about their physical properties, and serve as the basis for designing new “quantum chips” that will increase the security in communications, and the capabilities in quantum computing.

Multidisciplinarity within QEE2DUP

This project will merge pioneering know-how and experience in the synthesis of atomically-precise graphene nanoarchitectures (ICN2) and in transferring high quality encapsulated 2D materials and study low temperature photoluminescence (ICFO). The specific objectives targeted by this project are triggered by the long term goal of reinforcing interactions between groups within BIST working on surface-assisted synthesis (Mugarza’s group), optoelectronics (Koppens’s group) and more generally material science to design a new generation of Van der Waals heterostructures based on atomically-precise meta-materials.