Exploiting surfaces, edges and interfaces in integrated phononic platforms

Brief description of the institution:

ICN2 is a renowned research centre. Its research lines focus on the newly discovered physical and chemical properties that arise from the behaviour of matter at the nanoscale.

The Institute promotes collaboration among scientists from diverse backgrounds (physics, chemistry, biology, and engineering) to develop basic and applied research, while seeking out new ways to interact with local and global industry.

It also offers researchers training in nanotechnology, develops numerous activities to promote and enable the uptake of nanotechnology by industry, and promotes networking among scientists, engineers, technicians, business people, society, and policy makers.

ICN2 was accredited in 2014 as a Severo Ochoa Centre of Excellence and is a founding member of the Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology (BIST). The aim of the Severo Ochoa Program, sponsored by the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness, are to identify and support those Spanish research centres that demonstrate scientific leadership and impact at global level.

Brief description of the Centre/Research Group (including URL if applicable):

The Phononic and Photonic Nanostructures group (P2N) is carrying out research at the cross roads between nanotechnology and dispersion relation engineering. P2N group withits group leader has contributed to setup a community on phononics in Europe promoting and participating in many initiatives and projects. The P2N group has had an importantrole in establishing the field with contributions in the experimental part. These contributions span over the phonon spectrum from phonons in the hypersound tothermal phonons, studying the effects of size reduction, periodicity and disorder, for the manipulation and control of phonons and heat management. The P2N group has also been successful in merging its expertise in optical processes in nanostructures, fabrication and phononic and photonic engineering to implement hybrid opto‐mechanical systems. This research is anchored in pioneering nanofabrication performed in our group and collaborators, as well developing novel methods to produce nanostructures pushing towards the limits of nanofabrication to enable cutting‐edge research.

Project description:

Phononic crystals have been realized in the GHz range with the main purpose of obtaining spectral bandgaps. Furthermore artificial composite materials can provide any value of the mass density and elastic modulus, this opens the possibility for an intelligent tuning of the band dispersion, i.e., control over the group velocity, and the generation of effects similar than the electromagnetic counterpart. Elastic modes provide an adaptable approach for supporting a coherent coupling between different state variables. The interaction by piezoelectric and electrostrictive effects, aswell by photoelastic and moving boundaries mechanisms, promises a myriad of novelsignal‐processing functionalities in hybrid systems. For example, this will enable newsignal transduction architectures and signal‐processing functionalities like optical fieldmanipulation of RF waves by means of elastic interfaces. The short term objective of this project is to explore phononic metamaterials as an alternative means to achieve guiding and confinement of elastic waves in the hypersound without relying on Bragg reflections. The mid and long term objectives are the implementation of elastic wave sources and detectors and its interaction with photons.

Applications:

All applications must be sent to Francesc Alzina (francesc.alzina@icn2.cat) and Cristina Morales (cristina.morales@icn2.cat) and include the following:

• A full CV including contact details.
• Motivation letter.
• 2 recommendation letters.

Deadline for applications: 30th June 2018