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.
 |
 |
| Group Video, June 2015 | Russian River Canoe Trip, July 2014 |
 |
 |
| Upconversion | Nanoscale optical tomography |
Latest News
February 16: Congratulations to David on the publication of “Wavefront shaping and modulation with resonant electro-optic phase gradient metasurfaces” in Applied Physics Letters! Read the article.
January 15: Congratulations to Katherine on the publication of “Driving energetically unfavorable dehydrogenation dynamics with plasmonics” in Science! Read the article and press release.
November 5: Congratulations to Lisa, Mark, David, Stefanie and Jen on the publication of “Guided-Mode-Resonant Dielectric Metasurfaces for Colorimetric Imaging of Material Anisotropy in Fibrous Biological Tissue” in ACS Photonics!
October 30: Congratulations to David on the publication of "High-Q nanophotonics: sculpting wavefronts with slow light" in Nanophotonics!
October 16: Congratulations to Jason, Claire and Chris on the publication of "Lanthanide-Based Nanosensors: Refining Nanoparticle Responsiveness for Single Particle Imaging of Stimuli" in ACS Photonics!
October 13: Congratulations to Michelle on the publication of "Fluorescence-Detected Circular Dichroism of a Chiral Molecular Monolayer with Dielectric Metasurfaces" in the Journal of the American Chemical Society!
October 7: Jen is named an OSA Fellow for her contributions to nanophotonics! 2021 OSA Fellows
September 25: The group welcomes Cindy Shi, Baba Ogunlade, Ariel Stiber and Kai Chang to Stanford and the D-lab!
September 23: Congratulations to John on the publication of "Helicity‐Preserving Metasurfaces for Magneto‐Optical Enhancement in Ferromagnetic [Pt/Co]N Films" in Advanced Optical Materials!
September 22: Lisa is joining the faculty of UCSD's Jacob's School of Engineering this fall as an Assistant Professor. Congratulations Lisa! Press Release
September 11: Congratulations to Loza on the publication of "Plasmonic and electrostatic interactions enable uniformly-enhanced liquid bacterial surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS)" in Nano Letters!
Featured Research
I. Optical Wavefront Shaping Devices:
David and coauthors have developed a platform for efficient and reconfigurable optical wavefront shaping devices based on tuning high quality factor resonances with electro-optic materials. The ability to dynamically modulate and tune the optical response of phase gradient metasurfaces in this way opens the door to highly efficient and solid state AR/VR, LiDAR, and sensing technologies
II. Plasmons Modify Nanoparticle Dynamics:
Katherine and co-authors demonstrate how plasmons modify nanoparticle transformation dynamics, using in situ transmission electron microscopy to watch how electromagnetic enhancement can induce dehydrogenation at otherwise unreactive sites. These results suggest how optical excitation can unlock new material configurations and reactive sites in catalysts.
III. Colorimetric Metasurfaces for Tissue Diagnostics:
Lisa and Co-authors introduce a guided-mode-resonant dielectric metasurface which can be leveraged for colorimetric imaging of material anisotropy in fibrous biological tissue. Their approach opens the door to a variety of potential all-optical applications to diagnose tissue affected by diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease, heart disease or cancer.