Seminars

Higgs spectroscopy is a new and emergent field that allows to classify and determine the superconducting order parameter by means of ultra-fast optical spectroscopy. There are two established ways to activate the Higgs mode in superconductors, namely a single-cycle ‘quench’ or an adiabatic, multicycle ‘drive’ pulse. [more]

The emerging field of nanofluidics explores the molecular mechanics of fluids. This world of infinitesimal fluidics is the frontier where the continuum of fluid dynamics meets the atomic nature of matter, or even its quantum nature. Nature fully exploits the fluidic oddities at the nanoscale and it is capable of breath-taking technological feats using a fluidic circuitry made of multiple biological channels, such as ionic pumps, proton engines, ultra-selective pores, stimulable channels, ... [more]

Surfaces functionalized with helicenes are of interest for chiroptical electronic devices or for electron-spin filtering. While self-assembled layers facilitate studying interesting phenomena, covalently linked chiral modified materials would be much more robust and therefore better suited for applications. [more]

Surface plasmon polaritons (SPP) are composite electromagnetic field-charge density wave collective modes that propagate at metal/dielectric interfaces at the local speed of light. The circulation of their fields from transverse to longitudinal causes a transverse spin angular momentum (SAM) locking known as quantum spin-Hall effect, which embodies the property of evanescent waves, such as SPPs, that changing the sign of the photon momentum direction changes the sign of its spin. In other words, the oppositely propagating SPP waves possess the opposite spin. SPP fields can also carry optical angular momentum (OAM), which can focus them into plasmonic vortices. [more]