Quantum Spintronics: Ultrafast Magneto-Optical and Spin Dynamics in Advanced Materials

Due to strong spin-orbit coupling, advanced materials such as perovskites, transition metal dichalcogenides and their heterostructures exhibit the potential to store quantum information in individual electrons that may hold the key to the next generation of quantum computers and quantum communication. Understanding the spin or valley-dependent photophysics of different photoexcited species like carriers and excitons in these materials is important to optimize their function. To this goal, we employ ultrafast CD spectroscopy and related polarization-resolved ultrafast spectroscopy to study their spin, valley and magnetization dynamics. These studies aim to shed new light on their spin or valley-dependent photophysics and will provide the necessary design principles to develop spintronics materials with long spin lifetimes.


Instrumentation: Development of Novel Chiroptical Spectroscopy Techniques

A complete understanding of structure-dynamics-property correlations would require following the structural dynamics of (bio)-molecules and materials from the shortest time onwards, ideally with femtosecond time-resolution. This is hindered, however, by the structural-temporal gap that exists in the field of optical spectroscopy. An important part of our research effort is directed towards diminishing the gap through the development of novel chiroptical techniques which simultaneously provide high temporal resolution and structural sensitivity. This involves pushing the current chiroptical techniques such as time-resolved Circular Dichroism (CD), Circularly Polarized Luminescence (CPL), Raman Optical Activity (ROA) beyond state-of-the-art.