Abhijeet's Portfolio

My research sits at the intersection of ultrafast optics, quantum materials, and nanoscale engineering. The central question driving all of it: how do we access, control, and manipulate the quantum degrees of freedom inside atomically thin materials on ultrafast timescales?

Two-dimensional (2D) semiconductors

I investigate layered 2D semiconductors from the family of transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs). These materials provide a versatile platform for both fundamental studies and emerging quantum technologies.

First, their atomically thin nature enables efficient coupling to external perturbations, e.g., electromagentic fields, mechanical strain, proximity coupling, allowing a level of control difficult to achieve in conventional 3D systems. Second, 2D materials offer a ‘Lego-like’ platform, where individual layers can be peeled, stacked, or reassembled without altering their internal structure. This enables the design of artificial devices with tailored functionalities.

Finally, TMDs offer a new quantum degree of freedom beyond conventional electrical charge and spin in form of 'valleys' -- momentum coordinate of an electron. This creates an exciting prospect to exploit valleys as new means of informtion storage and transport.

An ultrafast spectroscopy setup

It began with building the experimental setup and tools that were critical to my research.

The centrepiece is a sub-100 femtosecond optical pump-probe spectroscopy system — designed and built from scratch. It integrates tunable laser sources, cryogenic sample environments (down to 4K), spatial mapping (sub-100 nm) capbilities, in-situ electro-mechanical control, and polarization-resolved detection.

This setup is home to 6+ graduate reserchers for their everyday experimental endevours.

Spintronics with 2D semiconductors

Spintronics, using electron spin rather than charge to carry information, promises faster, energy efficient technologies. Controlling spin at ultrafast timescales across material interfaces remains one of the field's hardest challenges.

Using the femtosecond pump-probe platform, we demonstrated all-optical spin transport across a 2D semiconductor interface. We showed that spin dynamics could be tuned by a factor of 10 through laser field control alone, opening a direct route to light-controlled spintronic devices built from 2D materials.

Selected publications: Nano Letters (2021), PRL (2025).

Strain engineering and valley control

Electrons in 2D semiconductors carry a quantum property called 'valley' index — analogous to spin, with equally promising applications in information technology. Mechanical strain offers a powerful, non-invasive way to control it.

We developed a nanomechanical platform to apply in-situ tunable, wide-range strain (exceeding 3%) to 2D semiconductor devices, which unlocked a plethora of physics not accessible before. We achieved bandgap tunability in excess of 40% in monolayer semiconductors, and generated pseudomagnetic fields of up to 40 Tesla on-chip. We engineered new hybridized quantum states with extraordinary spina nd valley properties that could only be realized in strained devices.

These works have established strain as a practical, scalable tool for engineering quantum states in 2D devices.

Selected publications: Nature Comm. (2024), Nano Letters (2025), Nature Comm. (2025), Nature Comm. (2022).

More collaborative research

Beiong atomically thin, 2D semiconductors are extremely sensitive to external perturbations. At the same time, excitons in these materials are robust with their large binding energies and stability, and dominate the optical responses.

By innovting new methods to perturb the fundamental quantum states of these systems, we uncovered many physics:

New excitons under large electric fields: Nature Comm. (2025)
Tunable magnons in 2D magnets: Arxiv (2025)
Strain-tunable quantum emitters: 2D Materials (2025)
Ultrafast exciton transport via photocurrent: Nano Letters (2023)

Work experience

[Date] - [Date]

[Company]

[Job Title]

[Date] - [Date]

[Company]

[Job Title]

[Date] - [Date]

[Company]

[Job Title]

Education

[Date] - [Date]

[School]

Page updated

Google Sites

Report abuse