MSI Principal Investigator Mo Li, an assistant professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (College of Science and Engineering), is one of the authors of a paper in the journal Nature Photonics that reveals properties of black phosphorus films that have exciting implications in optics and photonics. Black phosphorus is a stable crystalline form of the element; in thin films of 20 layers of atoms, it shows remarkable properties as a semiconductor. The paper discusses using black-phosphorus films on silicon optical circuits, with performance rivaling that of devices made of germanium.
An article about the paper appears on the University’s Discover blog. You can read the entire paper on the Nature Photonics website. (Nathan Youngblood, Che Chen, Steven J. Koester, and Mo Li. 2015. Waveguide-integrated black phosphorus photodetector with high responsivity and low dark current. Nature Photonics, 10.1038/nphoton.2015.23 [published online ahead of print].)
Professor Li and his group use MSI resources to model and design photonic structures and acoustic devices.