Photonic Materials & Structures Group

Photonic materials can emit, detect, reflect, transmit, convert, manipulate, and control the light and therefore they become interests of our group. Here we aim to study the light-matter interactions in novel materials, such as perovskites and chalcogenides, and their related photonic structures.

For the structures, we first focus on the confinements through different simple forms, such as zero- (quantum dots), one- (nanowires), two- (thin film or monolayers), and three- (single crystals) dimensional structures. We also evaluate complex photonic structures, such as photonic crystals, plasmonic meta surfaces, and disorder.

Our works are not only related with fundamental research but also with applications particularly LEDs, lasers, and scintillators with their observations vary from ultraviolet-visible to telecommunication wavelength.

M. Danang Birowosuto, Ph.D., Principal Investigator
Danang Birowosuto is a research area leader of “Photonic Materials” in Łukasiewicz – PORT. He received his Master and PhD degrees from University of Groningen and Delft University of Technology, respectively. After graduation, he was appointed as a postdoctoral researcher at University of Twente, Netherlands, and then, a researcher at Nippon Telephone Telegraph, Japan. In both places, he was active in research of Photonics and Nanotechnology with major interests including luminescence, scintillation, disordered materials, photonic crystals, plasmonic antennas, single photon sources, lasers, and telecom wavelength applications. Prior the position at Łukasiewicz – PORT, he joined CNRS International-NTU-Thales Research Alliance, Singapore, as principal researcher and program manager. There, he pioneered projects on perovskite halide scintillators and perovskite photonics. In total, he has 5 World and US patents with more than 100 journals (h-index 28). He is a member of many academic societies and also an active journal referee like in Nature, Optical Society, and American Chemical Society.

Dominik Kowal, Ph.D., Senior Research Engineer
Dominik Kowal is a researcher at „Photonic Materials” in Łukasiewicz – PORT. For his Master degree he finished the „MONABIPHOT” (Molecular Nano- and Bio- Photonics) joint programme of ENS Cachan and Wroclaw University of Science and Technology (WRUST). Later on he did his PhD research at WRUST, where he explored periodic structures in polymer optical fibers. He obtained his PhD degree in October 2016. For the next two years he worked as research assistant at WRUST and in 2019 he joined Łukasiewicz – PORT. Since then he has been involved in multiple research projects from the fields of material science, nanoengineering and photonics. His major interests focus on design and fabrication of nanophotonic and fiber optical systems, as well as exploration of new materials for photonic applications.

Md Abdul Kuddus Sheikh, Ph.D., Senior Research Engineer
Md Abdul Kuddus Sheikh is a researcher at “Photonic Materials and Structures” research group in Łukasiewicz – PORT. He received his Bachelor degree in Chemistry from University of Dhaka, Bangladesh and Masters leading Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from Kookmin University, South Korea. He obtained his Ph.D. in August 2020 and then he joined as a post-doctoral researcher in Industry-Academic Cooperation Foundation, Kookmin University, Korea till February 2022. In Kookmin University, his research was involve in perovskite solar cells, solar module, semi-transparent solar cells, various device structures, various electrode materials, and so on. Here in Łukasiewicz- PORT, he joined “Photonic Materials and Structures” research group in May 2022. His research focus on the study and analyze the optical and nonlinear properties of different perovskite materials and their potential for high-efficient perovskite photonic devices.

Somnath Mahato, Ph.D., Senior Research Engineer
Somnath Mahato a senior research engineer at “Photonic Materials and Structures” research group in Łukasiewicz – PORT. He obtained his PhD degree in October 2016 from Indian Institute of Technology (ISM) Dhanbad, India. During PhD, he developed Crystalline Silicon Solar Cell (HIT Solar Cells) using different transition metal oxides and conducting polymers as a hole transport layer at UPC Barcelona, Spain. Then he move to SINP, Kolkata, India as research associate and explored structural evaluation by grazing incidence X-ray scattering (GISAXS/GIWAXS) and X-ray reflectivity (XRR) using Synchrotron beam line sources at Photon Factory, KEK, Japan and Elettra, Italy. Later he join at IIT Kharagpur, India for the development of air-stable all inorganic perovskite solar cells using some atomic scale investigations. Now he joined at Łukasiewicz – PORT to develop two- and three-dimensional perovskite single crystals for optoelectronics application.

Specific fields:

  • Spontaneous and stimulated emission of pure and doped perovskite and chalcogenide materials.
  • Light matter interactions between the emitters and photonic crystals or plasmonic antennas.
    Nonlinear perovskite and chalcogenide materials.
  • Scintillators and radiation detectors based on perovskite and chalcogenides.

Our expertise is related with photonic materials and structures, from designing, fabrication, to characterizations.

Current facilities:

  • Electromagnetic wave simulation, finite difference time domain and finite element methods.
  • Fabrication of quantum dots, thin films, and single crystals of perovskites and chalcogenides.
  • Crystallographic characterizations and simulations.
  • Metal depositions for plasmonic and electrical contact of devices.
  • Fabrication of photonic and plasmonic nanostructures through photo- and electron beam lithography with various wet and dry etchings.
  • Micro-photoluminescence, time-resolved photoluminescence, and single-photon characterizations.
  • Telecom-wavelength waveguide and fiber characterizations.