Kambhampati Research Group

We are an Ultrafast spectroscopy group located in the beautiful city of Montreal.

 

Our research focuses on ultrafast processes occurring in quantum dots. Quantum dots are nanoscale semiconductors placing themselves between the microscopic molecular limits traditionally studied by chemists and the macroscopic bulk limit studied by physicists. In this intermediate regime of size and quantum mechanics, they are also referred to as an artificial atoms. This situation presents a rich playground for investigating the basic science which is at the heart of nanoscience, as well as rationally applying these fundamental results to develop possibly disruptive technologies. In this regard, we study phenomena such as optical gain, multi-exciton generation, surface effects, exciton-phonon coupling and hot exciton relaxation dynamics. Gaining an understanding of these phenomena will be key to assess their strengths and weaknesses in optoelectronic devices applications such as quantum dots solar cells, LEDs, sensors and QD-lasers. More about our research can be found here.

 

 

In order to explore the basic science of quantum dots, we develop and implement sophisticated laser spectroscopies to interrogate these materials in real time. With electronic and nuclear motion taking place on very fast timescales, we use an even faster “camera” – a femtosecond laser – to freeze out these motions and watch the ways in which these systems behave. In our lab, we use lasers that produce pulses of 10 femtoseconds (10 millionth of a billionth of a second) in duration. We can control these laser pulses so as to enable a wide variety of state-of-the-art spectroscopies to be performed on these quantum dots, such as transient absorption ultrafast spectroscopy, time-resolved electronic spectroscopy and recently multidimensional electronic spectroscopy. More about our infrastructures and experiments can be found here.