The understanding and ability to manipulate phonons as quantum particles in solids enable the control of coherent phonon transport, which is of fundamental interest and could also be exploited in applications. Logic operations can be realized with the manipulation of phonons both in their coherent and incoherent form in order to switch, amplify, route signals and to store information. If brought to a mature level, phononic devices can become
complementary to the conventional electronic ones, opening new opportunities.
With PHONUIT, we tackle the challenges of nanophononics both from the materials point of view, i.e. engineering the phononic properties of nanostructures, as well as from the methodology point of view, i.e. pushing the limits of currently existing experimental methods and developing novel measurements methods and platforms. Specifically, this project aims to realize a phononic integrated circuit, where phonons in coherent and/or incoherent form are generated, routed and detected on chip.
For the realization of integrated phononic circuit, we have worked in parallel on the different aspects that are needed for their design and development:
We investigate the phononic properties of nanomaterials with either inelastic light scattering spectroscopy, ultrafast techniques, or with thermal conductivity measurements.
In order to excite phonons with desired frequencies, we need to engineer the phononic properties of materials. Nanowires (NWs) offer the unique possibility to controllably obtain novel semiconductor materials in terms of crystal phase. This enables the fine tuning of their phononic, optical and electronic properties.
Furthermore, we want to tailor the phonon spectrum by means of nanostructuring combined with heterostructuring (i.e. the combination of different materials with different elastic properties). In particular, we envision the implementation of superlattices (SLs) into NWs, switching periodically the material and/or the crystal phase.
This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (Grant agreement No. 756365)