AMD

AMD - Advanced Material and Devices group

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The AMD laboratory accomplishes the double function of facility for the synthesis of semiconductor materials with high quality and purity in external collaborations (in the fields of nanophotonics and coherent transport), and of performing internal research activities devoted to the study of self-assembled quantum semiconductor nanostructures.

The high mobility molecular beam peitaxy (HM-MBE) system at AMD is the only one in Italy and one of the few in the world capable of synthesizing high-purity compound semiconductors, which allow to explore electronic transport regimes not attainable otherwise. We are able to synthesize 2D electron gases (2DEGs) in heterostructures based on both GaAs/AlGaAs materials, which allow the exploration of the more extreme regimes of coherent transport, and on metamorphic InGaAs/InAlAs, with applications in spintronics and in hybrid superconductor-semiconductor devices.

A collaboration with the Nano-CNR and Konstanz and Paris Universities, in the framework of cavity quantum electrodynamics, is dedicated to the implementation and control of ultra-strong light-matter coupling in the Terahertz regime.

The internal activity is mainly devoted to the synthesis and study of zero-dimensional self-assembled quantum dots (QD), usually described as "artificial atoms", which opened the way for new opportunities in optoelectronics and photonics. In particular, "directed" self-assembly of QDs on pre-patterned substrates allows superior control over size and spatial distribution, as a way to overcome the inherent randomness of the nucleation process, which largely hindered so far device applications of QDs.