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
October 1: Jen receives a NIH Director's New Innovator Award funded through its High-Risk, High-Reward Research Program! See the press release here and here
September 27: Congratulations to Alan for his collaborative Science paper with the groups of Prof. Stephan Link and Prof. Christy Landes at Rice, "Unraveling the Origin of Chirality from Plasmonic Nanoparticle-protein Complexes." Read the paper here!
September 3: Congratulations to Lisa on her paper, “Optical Helicity and Optical Chirality in Free Space and in the Presence of Matter,” now published in Symmetry!
August 28: Jen and Matthew Kanan, Associate Professor of Chemistry, are named co-directors of the TomKat Center for Sustainable Energy at Stanford. Congratulations! Stanford News
August 26-28: Jen, Michal and Mark present at the ACS National Meeting in San Diego.
July 30: PTL researchers presented their work at the DOE-EFRC PI meeting in DC on July 29-30. Thanks, DOE BES for organizing a great workshop! 
July 28: Daniel, Amr and Katherine attend the Gordon Research Conference, Plasmonically Powered Processes, at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. 
July 24: Congratulations to Mark on his paper, “Nanoscale nonreciprocity via photon-spin-polarized stimulated Raman scattering,” now published in Nature Communications!
July 9: Congratulations to Alice, Olivia, Chris, Claire, Randy and Stefan on their paper, “Optically Robust and Biocompatible Mechanosensitive Upconverting Nanoparticles,” now published in ACS Central Science!
July 9: Jen presents at the Telluride Science Solar Solutions Workshop in Telluride, CO.
July 8: Dayne Swearer joins the Dionne group as its newest Post Doctoral Researcher!
June 25: Jen presents at the ICMAT 2019 Conference in Singapore. 
Featured Research
I. Unraveling the origin of chirality from plasmonic nanoparticle-protein complexes:
Alan's work in cryo-electron microscopy was recently published in a collaboration led by Qingfeng Zhang with Stephan Link and Christy Landes from Rice University. The article in Science studied complexes of gold nanorods mixed with bovine serum albumin, finding that they exhibited chiral optical absorption due to plasmonic enhancement of the chiral protein signal, but only while assembled into 3-D nanorod aggregates--which had the same handedness as the protein. This work sheds light on the source of plasmon-coupled circular dichroism, informing future methods of sensing molecular chirality.
II. Optical Helicity and Optical Chirality in Free Space and in the Presence of Matter:
In their recent research perspective, Lisa, Jen and Aitzol discussed the concepts of optical helicity, optical chirality and their related conservation laws in free space and in the presence of matter. In particular, they elucidated distinct scenarios in which each quantity provides the most meaningful physical information. This work, now published in Symmetry, provides researchers with useful tools to rationally design chiral nanophotonic systems.
III. Nanoscale nonreciprocity via photon-spin-polarized stimulated Raman scattering:
Mark and Jen unveil a new all-optical scheme for breaking reciprocity at the nanoscale. The work, now published in Nature Communications, describes the design of an ultrathin high quality factor silicon metasurface capable of amplifying spin polarized stimulated Raman scattering, a previously unexplored nonlinear optical phenomenon. This platform could find uses in a range of technologies, from photovoltaics to all-optical computer chips.
