Giuliana is an Associate Professor in Device Materials at the Department of Materials Science & Metallurgy, University of Cambridge. She is also Head of the Device Materials Group (DMG), which counts two other Principal Investigators. Her recognition on an international scale led to several awards (such as the ABTA Doctoral Researcher Award and the CSWP Woman Physicist of the Month from the American Physical Society), the prestigious Winton Advanced Research Fellowship as well as various national and international grants, including an ERC starting grant.

Her research links the fields of low-energy nanoscale device engineering and plasmon-enhanced light-matter interactions by implementing optically-accessible devices. The Di Martino Lab uses ultra-concentration of light to develop innovative fast ways to study real-time movement of individual atoms that underpins this new generation of ultra-low energy memory nano-devices.

Abstract - A new era of materials characterization: can we achieve atomic sensitivity using visible light?

We just entered a new era of materials characterization, where atomic sensitivity can be achieved by plasmon-enhanced optical spectroscopy. During this talk you’ll hear about a new characterization method where nanoparticle-mediated electrical contacts can “squeeze” light in the device active material, providing an innovative non-destructive technique able to characterise various device materials changes in operando. We will discuss how we probe few hundreds oxygen vacancies drift in thin (~5 nm) dielectric films during device switching just by the aid of visible light, an approach that helped to identify the breakdown mechanisms upon cycling in memristive device [1] and ultrathin ferroelectric memory devices (FeRAMs), [2].

We will hear about the first characterization of nanoscale MoS₂-based electrical switches at room temperature and in air, where we proved volatile threshold resistive switching due to the intercalation of metallic atoms from electrodes directly between Mo and S atoms. Once again, our superb sensitivity is here able evidence the size of bridges till the atomic resolution, confirming the picture of many nanofilaments (1–2 Au atoms thick) penetrating spaces between atoms in MoS₂ rather than one filament growing along a grain boundary [3].

[1]  G. Di Martino, A. Demetriadou, W. Li, D. Kos, B. Zhu, X. Wang, B. de Nijs, H. Wang, J. MacManus-Driscoll, and J. J. Baumberg, Nat. Electron. 3, 687 (2020).
[2]  A. Jan, T. R., S. Taper, J. Symonowicz, N. Strkalj, T. Moon, Y. S. Lee, H. Bae, H. J. Lee, D.-H. Choe, J. Heo, J. MacManus-Driscoll, B. Monserrat, and G. Di Martino, Adv. Funct. Mater. 2023, 2214970 (2023).
[3]  J. Symonowicz,  D. Polyushkin,  T. Mueller, and G. Di Martino, Adv. Mater. 35, 2209968 (2023).