Researchers led by Rensselaer Professor Humberto Terrones received a $2 million grant from the National Science Foundation to research emerging nanomaterials.

The funding will allow researchers to explore the structure and capabilities of transition metal dichalcogenides, layered nanomaterials with intriguing optical and electronic properties. Transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs), a class of materials composed of a transition metal and sulfur or selenium atoms, have potential applications as semiconductors and optical sensors. The metallic phases of TMDs can exhibit superconductivity.

"Because of the arrangement of the atoms, the material absorbs and plays with light in a particular way, reflecting or absorbing light based upon its symmetry," Terrones, the Rayleigh Chair for Theoretical Physics and a tenured full professor in the Department of Physics, Applied Physics, and Astronomy at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), said in a statement. "We want to investigate the properties -- both linear and nonlinear optical properties -- that come from these materials."

NSF Office of Emerging Frontiers in Research and Innovation awarded the grant to Terrones and colleagues at Pennsylvania State University, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, and Washington University in St. Louis.

The goals of the project, titled "Crystalline Atomically Thin Layers for Photonic Applications," are to synthesize different atomically thin two-dimensional (2-D) semiconducting layers, which possess novel properties often unavailable in their bulk counterparts, and incorporate them onto devices for novel photonic applications. The active and nonlinear photonic devices using 2-D materials can potentially create a new paradigm of optoelectronics and may lead to numerous optical information and quantum information-related applications.

The multidisciplinary team will investigate key research areas from 2-D material synthesis, condensed matter theory, and optical engineering. Although Terrones is equally interested in theory and experimentation, in this project, he will focus largely on theory.

"I will design a structure or heterostructure, model it, and calculate its properties," said Terrones. "And I tell the experimentalists what to build and how we can expect the structure to behave."