Chemistry professor and CSMB founding director Stefan Hecht is certain: Many global challenges related to sustainable resource use can only be mastered through innovation in the field of materials science. While achieving this, he hopes for successful interdisciplinary cooperation with other university and non-university institutions. The member of IRIS Adlershof explains the methods he targets to advance materials research in the new issue of the Adlershof Journal.

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By applying strain on WSe₂ membranes with a high degree of control, Dr. Sebastian Heeg and colleagues characterized the different excitonic species present in the material according to their energetic dependence with strain. At certain strain levels, strain-independent defect states and strain dependent dark excitons became energy degenerated and their photoluminescence intensity increased an order of magnitude. “The high tunability of the hybridized state enabled by our device architecture will be likely key for the operation of single quantum emitters in WSe₂” highlights Pablo Hernández López, a PhD candidate at Dr. Heeg’s group and co-author of the paper, “On the other hand, the characterization and tuning of the energy hierarchy of the excitons present on suspended materials using our electrostatic straining approach opens the door for more exciting discoveries in the future”.
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Strain control of hybridization between dark and localized excitons in a 2D semiconductor
P. Hernández López, S. Heeg, C. Schattauer, S. Kovalchuk, A. Kumar, D.J. Bock, J.N. Kirchhof, B. Hoefer, K. Greben, D. Yagodkin, L. Linhart, F. Libisch, K.I. Bolotin
Nature Communications, 13, 7691 (2022) ^OPENACCESS
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-35352-9

On 13.12. the young researchers celebrated a Christmas party at a common room in the IRIS research building. In keeping with the occasion, they were also asked science quiz questions related to Christmas, resulting in many interesting conversations. Of course, Christmas music was also not to be missed. Fortified by stollen and mulled wine, they thus celebrated the holiday season and share their love of science with their colleagues and friends.