Micro- and Nanophotonic Materials Group

The focus of the group is on the modeling of photonic effects in thin-film, micro- and nano-scale structures. We study novel technologies, such as plasmonics and photonic crystals, to aid the efficiency of photovoltaic and LED devices.

Head of group : B. MAES
bjorn.maes@umons.ac.be
tel : +32 65 373 385

Contact:

University of Mons,
Faculty of Sciences
Bat. IV,
Avenue Maistriau 19,
B-7000 Mons, Belgique

www.umons.ac.be/nanophot

News:

• Nicolas Rivolta received the best paper award at the conference OWTNM XXIII (City University London, Optical wave and waveguide theory and numerical modelling, 16-18 April 2015). The title of the paper and the oral presentation he gives is: "Diffraction properties of a tailored parity-time (PT) symmetric grating."

• Fabio Vaianella received the Umicore Materials Technology MSc Award 2015 for his Master thesis entitled "Using graphene as a transparent and conductive electrode for photovoltaic cells". The Umicore Materials Technology MSc Award rewards every year four Master students (5 years) for original contributions in fields such as fine particles, sustainable energy, catalysis and economic and societal issues about metal-based materials. His master thesis presents a new alternative to indium tin oxide (ITO) electrodes used for instance in amorphous silicon-based photovoltaic cells. This new alternative, cheaper than ITO, relies on simple graphene layers which is a bidimensional crystalline material made of carbon atoms.