Coordinator Carino Ferrante
The physics of low dimensional materials is one of the main research directions among the condensed matter community. Triggered by the seminal studies on graphene, this field now expanded to include a wide variety of layered compounds, such as MXenes, transition metal dichalcogenides, and topological insulators. Most of them derive their properties from the reduced dimensionality, and in particular from the confinement of electrons in two and even one dimension, through atomic engineering of the interfaces and by lateral confinement obtained by synthesis and by nano-patterning.
In CNR-SPIN we study novel low-dimensional materials and their heterostructures aiming at designing and realizing new nanodevices having unconventional and/or unprecedented performance. To this purpose, our research activity includes the fundamental understanding of charge, structural and spin dynamics in low-dimensional systems by combining diverse and complementary theoretical and experimental approaches. Specifically, the research fields are: 1) the advanced synthesis of innovative 2D materials and their relative heterostructures, with the control of interfaces and surfaces, 2) ultrafast investigation (~100 fs time scale) of out-of-equilibrium phenomena with pump-probe schemes, 3) the study of transport phenomena through magnetic, electric, thermal and optical characterization, 4) the theoretical investigation of such systems and phenomena through theoretical modelling and ab-initio calculations.
Research topics:
- “Synthesis of 2D and topological materials”
- “2D materials for sensing”
- “Magneto/Electro/Thermal transport in Van der Waals materials”
- “Theoretical modelling of 2D materials and heterostructures”
- “Optical and ultra-fast characterizations of 2D systems”
- "Scanning probe microscopy characterizations of 2D materials"
