Centre Member Profile

Igor Aharonovich

Employer: University of Technology Sydney

Centre Role: Chief Investigator

Job Title in TMOS: Professor of Physics, Theme Co-Leader (Generate), Outreach Director

Research Interests:
- Single emitters
- 2D materials
- Quantum nanophotonics
- Light Matter interactions

Education:
B.Sc. M.Sc. Technion – Israel Institute of Technology (Materials Engineering, 2005, 2007)
PhD – University of Melbourne (Physics, 2010)

Biography:

Igor Aharonovich received his B.Sc (2005) and M.Sc (2007) in Materials Eng from the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology under the supervision of Prof Yeshayahu Lifshitz. He then moved to Australia and pursued his PhD studies at the University of Melbourne under the supervision of Prof Steven Prawer. During his PhD, Igor developed experimental techniques to engineer novel, ultra bright single photon emitters in diamond.

In 2011, Igor took a postdoctoral position at Harvard University at the group of Prof Evelyn Hu. His research was focused on nanofabrication of optical cavities out of diamond, SiC and GaN. He also carried out nanophotonic experiments including coupling of emitters to optical cavities, turning of cavity resonances and low temperature high resolution spectroscopy.

In 2013 Igor has joined the University of Technology Sydney, where he leads the quantum nanophotonics laboratory. His research is focused on exploring single defects in wide bandgap semiconductors for quantum technologies. Specifically, his team was the first to discover single emitters in hexagonal boron nitride and the first to isolate spin defects in this material. In 2018, together with Carlo Bradac, Igor co-founded http://www.writeitupnow.com – a scientific writing company that assists scientists in communicating their scientific results.

Igor received several international awards including the CN Yang Award – honors young researchers with prominent research achievements in physics in the Asia Pacific region (2019), the Pawsey medal from the Australian Academy of Science (2017), David Syme Research Prize (For the best original research in biology, physics, chemistry or geology, produced in Australia during the preceding two years (2017), the IEEE Photonics Young Investigator Award (2016)

2020

Bradac, C; Gao, W; Forneris, J; Trusheim, M E; Aharonovich, I (2020). Author Correction: Quantum nanophotonics with group IV defects in diamond (Nature Communications, (2019), 10, 1, (5625), 10.1038/s41467-019-13332-w). Nature Communications, 11 (1), 2020.
Fronzi, M; Bishop, J; Assadi, M H N; Regan, B; Stampfl, C; Aharonovich, I; Ford, M J; Toth, M (2020). Role of knock-on in electron beam induced etching of diamond. Carbon, 164 , pp. 51-58, 2020.
Cunha, R; Cadore, A; Ramos, S L L M; Watanabe, K; Taniguchi, T; Kim, S; Solntsev, A S; Aharonovich, I; Malard, L M (2020). Second harmonic generation in defective hexagonal boron nitride. Journal of Physics Condensed Matter, 32 (19), 2020.
Xu, Z -Q; Mendelson, N; Scott, J A; Li, C; Abidi, I H; Liu, H; Luo, Z; Aharonovich, I; Toth, M (2020). Charge and energy transfer of quantum emitters in 2D heterostructures. 2D Materials, 7 (3), 2020, (cited By 0).
Chen, Y; Tran, T N; Duong, N M H; Li, C; Toth, M; Bradac, C; Aharonovich, I; Solntsev, A; Tran, T T (2020). Optical Thermometry with Quantum Emitters in Hexagonal Boron Nitride. ACS applied materials & interfaces, 12 (22), pp. 25464-25470, 2020, (cited By 0).
Mendelson, N; Doherty, M; Toth, M; Aharonovich, I; Tran, T T (2020). Strain-Induced Modification of the Optical Characteristics of Quantum Emitters in Hexagonal Boron Nitride. Advanced Materials, 32 (21), 2020, (cited By 0).
Hayee, F; Yu, L; Zhang, J L; Ciccarino, C J; Nguyen, M; Marshall, A F; Aharonovich, I; Vučković, J; Narang, P; Heinz, T F; Dionne, J A (2020). Revealing multiple classes of stable quantum emitters in hexagonal boron nitride with correlated optical and electron microscopy. Nature Materials, 19 (5), pp. 534-539, 2020, (cited By 3).
Gottscholl, A; Kianinia, M; Soltamov, V; Orlinskii, S; Mamin, G; Bradac, C; Kasper, C; Krambrock, K; Sperlich, A; Toth, M; Aharonovich, I; Dyakonov, V (2020). Initialization and read-out of intrinsic spin defects in a van der Waals crystal at room temperature. Nature Materials, 19 (5), pp. 540-545, 2020, (cited By 5).
Yang, I; Kim, S; Niihori, M; Alabadla, A; Li, Z; Li, L; Lockrey, M N; Choi, D -Y; Aharonovich, I; Wong-Leung, J; Tan, H H; Jagadish, C; Fu, L (2020). Highly uniform InGaAs/InP quantum well nanowire array-based light emitting diodes. Nano Energy, 71 , 2020, (cited By 0).
Fröch, J E; Kim, S; Stewart, C; Xu, X; Du, Z; Lockrey, M; Toth, M; Aharonovich, I (2020). Photonic Nanobeam Cavities with Nanopockets for Efficient Integration of Fluorescent Nanoparticles. Nano Letters, 20 (4), pp. 2784-2790, 2020, (cited By 0).
Bray, K; Fedyanin, D Y; Khramtsov, I A; Bilokur, M O; Regan, B; Toth, M; Aharonovich, I (2020). Electrical excitation and charge-state conversion of silicon vacancy color centers in single-crystal diamond membranes. Applied Physics Letters, 116 (10), 2020, (cited By 0).
Aharonovich, I; Kim, S; Liu, J; Majumdar, A; Neu, E (2020). Materials and devices for quantum photonics: Introduction to special issue. Optical Materials Express, 10 (3), pp. 715-716, 2020, (cited By 0).
Regan, B; Aghajamali, A; Froech, J; Tran, T T; Scott, J; Bishop, J; Suarez-Martinez, I; Liu, Y; Cairney, J M; Marks, N A; Toth, M; Aharonovich, I (2020). Plastic Deformation of Single-Crystal Diamond Nanopillars. Advanced Materials, 32 (9), 2020, (cited By 1).
Dietrich, A; Doherty, M W; Aharonovich, I; Kubanek, A (2020). Solid-state single photon source with Fourier transform limited lines at room temperature. Physical Review B, 101 (8), 2020, (cited By 1).
Bradac, C; Lim, S F; Chang, H -C; Aharonovich, I (2020). Optical Nanoscale Thermometry: From Fundamental Mechanisms to Emerging Practical Applications. Advanced Optical Materials, 2020, (cited By 0).
Grosso, G; Moon, H; Ciccarino, C J; Flick, J; Mendelson, N; Mennel, L; Toth, M; Aharonovich, I; Narang, P; Englund, D R (2020). Low-Temperature Electron-Phonon Interaction of Quantum Emitters in Hexagonal Boron Nitride. ACS Photonics, 2020, (cited By 0).