Welcome! We are the research group of Jen Dionne, Associate Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Stanford University. We are a diverse team of materials scientists, chemists, applied physicists, electrical engineers, chemical engineers, bioengineers and mechanical engineers, researching new ways to control light-matter interactions.
We imagine a world where diseases like cancer, Alzheimer's and tuberculosis are detected and cured with light; where solar cells provide abundant clean energy; and where cell phones compute at the speed of light. We then strive to make that future a reality through development of new nanophotonic materials, methods, and devices.
Please feel free to navigate this site or contact us for more information!
What is a typical day like for a researcher in our group? Check out our videos to learn more about our science and our culture. If you like what you see and want to join our team, please send us your resume. We're always on the lookout for smart, creative people.
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| Group Video, June 2015 | Russian River Canoe Trip, July 2014 |
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| Upconversion | Nanoscale optical tomography |
Latest News
July 1: Congratulations to Katherine for successfully defending her thesis! 
June 30: Jen is named the Senior Associate Dean of Research for Platforms/Shared Facilities!
June 29: Congratulations to Jefferson on being featured in “Stories of Pride,” published in SPIE. Pride Month Conversations! <_> Related tweet
June 29: Congratulations to Michelle for successfully defending her thesis! 
June 15: Michelle is selected as an OSA 2020-21 Congressional Science and Engineering Fellow. Congratulations Michelle! Press Release.
June 10: Mark will join the faculty of the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis this fall as Assistant Professor of Electrical & Systems Engineering. Congratulations Mark! Press Release.
June 4: Congratulations to Elissa on the publication of "Dynamic Focusing with High-Quality-Factor Metalenses" in Nano Letters!
June 1: Fareeha Safir joins the Dionne group as its newest member and as a co-advisee with Professor Khuri-Yakub in Electrical Engineering!
May 20: Congratulations to Loza on the acceptance of the manuscript "Towards Rapid Infectious Disease Diagnosis with Advances in Surface Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy" for publication in The Journal of Chemical Physics!
April 8: D-Lab keeps at the forefront of science and fun with virtual meetings! 
Featured Research
I. Toward Rapid Infectious Disease Diagnosis:
Loza, Fareeha, Amr and co-authors shared their perspective on advances in surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) for achieving clinically translatable diagnostic system. In COVID-19 era, it is apparent that rapid and accurate diagnosis is key for timely treatment. Our work covers current advances in SERS including machine learning for spectral data analysis and nanophotonic surface design, affinity agents for specific binding of targets, and microfluidics and bioprinting tools for efficient sample processing. Our work highlights that these advances lay a promising pathway for translating SERS for clinical application.
II. Dynamic Focusing with High-Quality-Factor Metalenses:
Elissa and co-authors investigated an high-Q metasurface platform for modulatable lensing. In their recent paper published in Nano Letters, they were able to achieve quality factors exceeding 5000, 2 orders of magnitude higher than other existing phase gradient metasurfaces. Combining these high quality factors, and the associated enhancement of the confined optical modes, with the nonlinear Kerr effect the authors were able to vary the metalens’s focal length from 4 to 6.5 μm and observed a power-limiting-like effect of the focal intensity. This work provides a foundation for future fully reconfigurable metasurface optical components, spanning LIFI, LIDAR, and wavefront sensing.
III. Quantum Defects in 2D Materials:
Fariah and co-workers investigated visible single photon emitting defects in hexagonal boron nitride to explore their microscopic origin and structure-function correlations. In their recent paper published in Nature Materials, they were able to localize the defects with 20 nm resolution by correlating photoluminescence and cathodoluminescence of individual defects. This correlation combined with nanobeam electron diffraction enabled by the localization, led them to classify the single photon emitters into at least four classes of different defects. Their results also show that strain is not necessary to activate emission, neither is the main reason behind the broad spectral range (550 nm – 730 nm) of emission.