Internship and thesis proposals
Spectroscopy of nanoconfined polar liquids

Domaines
Soft matter
Physics of liquids
Nanophysics, nanophotonics, 2D materials and van der Waals heterostructures,, surface physicss, new electronic states of matter

Type of internship
Expérimental
Description
Water confined at the nanometric scale exhibits unexpected behavior, as demonstrated by recent advances in nanofluidics. One striking example is the so-called dielectric anomaly: under strong confinement, the dielectric permittivity of water decreases by a factor of 40 compared with its bulk value. This phenomenon has important implications for biological processes occurring at the nanoscale, as well as for energy-storage applications such as supercapacitors. Yet, the physical mechanism responsible for the dielectric anomaly is still the subject of ongoing debate in the literature. A major obstacle is the scarcity of experimental data on the subject, currently limited to water. The aim of this project is to develop a dielectric spectroscopy platform capable of probing not only the static response but also the dynamics of polar liquids under extreme confinement. This will be achieved by fabricating nanochannels within stacks of 2D materials, such as graphite or hBN, which offer exceptionally flat surfaces and allow the channel thickness to be controlled with sub-nanometer precision). By combining the lab’s expertise on the spectroscopy of polar liquids with recent advances in nanofluidics, we aim to access experimental regimes that were previously out of reach and to elucidate the role of dipolar correlations in the dielectric response of liquids under confinement. This internship may lead to a PhD (funded by ANR JCJC).

Contact
Marceau Henot
Laboratory : SPEC - UMR 3680
Team : SPHYNX
Team Website
/ Thesis :    Funding :