Tunable plasmonics with two-dimensional transition metal nitrides

Plasmonic materials can confine light into subwavelength scale, thus play a critical role in future technologies in the fields of energy, environment, and medicine, among others. The conventional plasmonic materials based on noble metals have several undesirable properties and therefore seeking new materials is a vital step to enable those technologies. In my research plan, a class of two dimensional (2D) materials called transition metal nitrides (TMNs) will be synthesized and their plasmonic properties will be investigated experimentally and theoretically. The research will be mainly carried out at Aalto University. As a unique feature of 2D TMNs, their plasmonic behavior should be tunable via surface engineering, which makes them excellent candidates for applications in chemical sensing and energy harvesting. Moreover, the materials are composed of earth-abundant (and nontoxic) elements such as titanium, zirconium, and nitrogen, which makes them more economic than noble metals.