Unlocking the Potential of 2D Nanomaterials (Supported by the Gapontsev Family Collaborative Venture Fund)

Valentin Gapontsev, who received an honorary Doctor of Engineering Degree from WPI in 2001, was an internationally recognized physicist widely known as the “Father of the Fiber Laser Industry.” In 2001, with the burgeoning job market in photonics and the need for greater photonics research, Gapontsev began a long partnership and record of generous support with WPI. It started with the establishment of the IPG Photonics Laboratory, located in Olin Hall, a valuable academic resource for teaching photonics with emphasis on fibers, lasers, and detectors. Gapontsev passed away in October 2021, but his legacy lives on at WPI. The Gapontsev family has continued to support the university in critically important ways. Reflecting Valentin’s penchant for innovation and scientific discovery, the family recently established the Gapontsev Family Collaborative Venture Fund, with the goal of incentivizing, catalyzing, and inspiring interdisciplinary collaboration across the WPI enterprise with a special focus on photonics. The seed grants, awarded through a competitive process, will enable more successful research endeavors.

Six faculty were awarded Gapontsev seed grants last academic year to support three very different research projects that use photonics to push the boundaries of innovation, while also providing first-rate research opportunities for students. In the coming weeks, spotlights will be shared on the projects the Gapontsev Family Collaborative Venture Fund has made possible. 

Read the full Donor Impact Story in the upcoming Summer WPI Journal.

Unlocking the Potential of 2D Nanomaterials

Lyubov Titova, associate professor of physics, and her research partners Ronald Grimm, associate professor of chemistry and biochemistry, and Kateryna Friedman, research assistant professor of physics, used the seed grant to conduct studies on how 2D nanomaterials interact with light. These materials have individual layers as thin as one-millionth of a millimeter and have lateral dimensions that are thousands of times the thickness, Titova explains.

“Many of them have unique optical and electronic properties that are distinct from those of three-dimensional crystals. Our goal is to uncover those properties that are promising for new optical devices that operate in the visible and far infrared (terahertz) range of the spectrum,” Titova says. “The ultimate impact of this work will be new knowledge about optical properties of ultrathin, flexible, inexpensive 2D materials that can be integrated into photonics devices such as lasers, sensors, detectors, and light modulators for optical information processing.” 

The Gapontsev grant, she says, has been critical to the advancement of this research, supporting an undergraduate summer researcher and helping to purchase supplies and parts needed to extend their experiments. The results of some of those experiments have been submitted to the 48th International Conference on Infrared, Millimeter and Terahertz Waves (IRMMW-THz) to be held in Montreal, Canada, in September.

“We are honored by the award and extremely thankful for the opportunity to carry out this work,” Titova says. “On a more personal note, we are deeply touched by the Gapontsev family creating and supporting WPI Student Disaster Relief Fund & Gapontsev Family Support Fund to help students impacted by the war in Ukraine.” Two members of their team are Ukrainian: Kateryna Friedman’s undergraduate alma mater is Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, and Lyubov Titova’s is The Precarpathian National University in Western Ukraine, not far from Lviv where Valentin Gapontsev studied. 

“We have been profoundly impacted by the war, worried about family and friends in harm’s way. We also know how much this support meant for WPI’s Ukrainian undergraduate students.”