Emiliano is Professor in Experimental Physics and Energy Conversion at the Faculty of Physics, University of Munich (LMU), Germany and he is the academic lead of the Nanomaterials for Energy group. He is also a visiting researcher at the Materials Departments of both Tianjin University, China and Imperial College London, UK.
His research interests lie at the interface between chemistry and physics, and focus on the development of novel nanomaterials and techniques, specifically for applications in energy conversion. He had published over 120 scientific articles, 1 book and 4 patents on these topics.
Emiliano studied chemistry at the National University of La Plata in Argentina. He was one of the founders of Nano-detection, a start-up company based on plasmonic sensing. He has been awarded by the European Commission several times, intially as Marie-Skłodowska-Curie research fellow at Imperial College London and later at LMU with ERC Grants for his projects CATALIGHT and SURFLIGHT. In 2021, the Royal Society of Chemistry in UK awarded him as Emerging Investigator in Materials Science. In 2022, he was listed among the top-1000 most cited researchers worldwide in Nanoscience and Nanotechnology.
He is currently a PI of the German excellence research cluster e-conversion and co-coordinator of its graduate program, scientific board member in the Center for NanoScience (CeNS) in Munich, member of the Bavarian program Solar Technologies go Hybrid (SolTech), and fellow of the Young Academy of Europe (YAE). He is also a member of the American Chemical Society (ACS). Since 2024, Emiliano has been elected as the first-ever external Associate Researcher at the TUM Catalysis Research Center (CRC) in Munich.
Emiliano is also co-editor of the first book in Plasmonic Catalysis (Wiley, June 2021). He is also a member of the Editorial Board in several journals, including ACS Nano, ACS Energy Letters, Advanced Photonics Nexus and eScience. Emiliano has edited special issues in plasmonic and photonic chemistry for ACS Photonics and Communications Chemistry.
contact: Emiliano.Cortes@lmu.de, +49 89 2180 83902, D03.009
Senior Research Fellows
Hans Fischer Senior Fellows
Sustainable photocatalysis using plasmons and 2D materials
Recent research by the Rice team has introduced a new paradigm for the efficient capture and conversion of light to chemical energy, via the antenna-reactor concept. Our focus group will explore the full parameter space in terms of materials for antenna-reactor complexes, by combining plasmonic and dielectric materials as antennas and 2D materials as reactors. The latter have great potential for energy conversion due to their high surface-volume ratio, possibility of incorporation of defects, molecular capture capabilities, as well optoelectronic tuning.
Institute of Advanced Studies (IAS) Technical University of Munich (TUM)
Hosts: Prof. E. Cortes (LMU), Prof. J. Finley (TUM) ,Prof. I. Sharp (TUM)
Associated Researchers and Postdocs
MOHSEN BELADI MOUSAVI
Mohsen is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie research fellow working on enhancing the speed and efficiency of microbots by employing plasmonic fuels.
contact: M.Mousavi@physik.uni-muenchen.de
+49 89 2180 83931, D03.012
Evangelina Pensa
Eva is designing materials at the atomic-scale for energy conversion, including metal clusters and 2D materials. She works in collaboration with Prof. Alex Urban.
contact: e.pensa@physik.uni-muenchen.de
D03.011
ANDREI STEFANCU
Andrei is a Humboldt research fellow working on enhanced spectroscopies, machine learning and metamaterials for energy conversion.
contact: andrei.stefancu@physik.uni-muenchen.deD03.011
Rambabu Yalavarthi
Rambabu is a Marie-Curie research fellow, and his research is focused on the atomic scale level engineering and detection of oxygen vacancies for energy conversion using plasmonic and photonic substrates.
contact: R.Yalavarthi@physik.uni-muenchen.de
D03.007
Olivier Henrotte
Olivier works on near-field microscopy approaches to understand mechanisms behind plasmonic and photonic catalysis as well as other energy conversion routes.
contact: O.Henrotte@physik.uni-muenchen.de
D03.007
Wenjie Tian
Wenjie has a “Discovery Early Career Research” Fellowship from the Australian Research Council and the University of Adelaide to work on solar electrocatalysis with hybrid nanomaterials.
contact: Wenjie.Tian@physik.uni-muenchen.de
D03.007
Oliver Brix
Oliver advances and utilizes novel optical techniques for examining light induced dynamical processes within nanomaterials.
contact: Brix.Oliver@physik.uni-muenchen.de
D03.012
Xiaofeng Zhou
Xiaofeng is a Humboldt research fellow working on emerging plasmonic effects for carbon capture and utilization.
PhD students
CHRISTOPH GRUBER
Christoph investigates novel applications of optical techniques for operando studies on nanomaterials for energy conversion.
contact: Ch.Gruber@physik.uni-muenchen.de
D03.012
LI ZHU
Li is supported by the LMU-CSC Scholarship to develop highly efficient catalyst for plasmonic electrocatalytic CO2 reduction, including experiments and DFT calculations.
contact: zhu.li@physik.uni-muenchen.de
D03.005
YICUI KANG
Yicui is developing new nanomaterials and methods for advancing in the carbon dioxide electroreduction reaction.
contact: kang.yicui@campus.lmu.de
D03.005
FRANZ GRÖBMEYER
Franz is working on the integration of electrochemistry and interferometric scattering for nanoscale catalysis.
contact: Franz.Groebmeyer@physik.uni-muenchen.de
D03.007
CHENGHAO FAN
Chenghao is currently working on bottom-up synthesis of chiral and plasmonic-catalytic nanoparticles as well as simulations, modelling and molecular calculations.
contact: Chenghao.Fan@physik.uni-muenchen.de
D03.005
DIYA XIE
Diya is an LMU-CSC fellow working on earth-abundant metamaterials for solar fuels production.
YE-HUA WANG
Ye-Hua is a PhD student at the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) in Hefei, China and he is a LMU-CSC fellow in our group working on Ni-based catalysts.
EDOARDO MARIANI
Edoardo is a PhD fellow from the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes working on plasmonic materials for solar fuels production and energy storage in Li batteries.
Masters students
Joel Mascarenhas
Joel is developing new patterning methods for metal oxide photoelectrodes and metal oxide metasurfaces for light-into-chemical energy conversion. He works in close collaboration with the group of Prof. Ian Sharp (TUM).
contact: J.Mascarenhas@physik.uni-muenchen.de
Matthis Bünning
Matthis is developing new plasmonic Al-based nanomaterials for improving Li-batteries and associated technologies and processes.
Klara Dömer
Onur Cakir
Onur is working on novel optical solutions for tracing chemical reactivity at the nanoscale.
Bachelor students
LENA ZIMMER
Lena is working in the understanding of plasmonic catalytic platforms with XPS.
SAMUEL CONRAD
Samuel is performing illumination studies of energy materials with XPS.
Visitors
KATIA-EMIKO GUIMA
Katia is visiting us from Campinas University, Brazil, as part of the DAAD-CAPES program and she is working on mechanistic understanding of plasmonic electrocatalytic systems with FTIR.
VICTOR YOITI YUKUHIRO
Victor is visiting us from Campinas University, Brazil, as part of the DAAD-CAPES program and he is working on advancing biomass transformation with plasmonic materials.
Administrative and technical support (LS Hybrid Nanosystems)
Denise Wedemeyer
Denise Wedemeyer provides us with administrative and secretarial support.
contact: D.Wedemeyer@physik.uni-muenchen.de
+49 89 2180 83901, D03.008
Reinhold Rath
supports our clean room and general lab facilities, and is also in charge of safety.
contact: Reinhold.Rath@physik.uni-muenchen.de
+49 89 2180 83909, D03.010
Previous members of the group:
• Matias Herran, Fritz Haber Institute, Germany
• Simone Ezendam, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden
• Sebastian Langer, Oerlikon, Liechtenstein
• Seryio Saris, MIT, USA
• Seunghoon Lee, Dong-A University, Korea
• Julian Gargiulo, UNSAM, Argentina
• Ana Sousa-Castillo, University of Vigo, Spain
• Thomas Brick, Haseltine Lake LLP, UK
• Jonas Tittel, LMU Munich, Germany
• Harriet Walker, HSBC, UK
• Maximilian Maier, Helmholtz Institute, Germany
• Florian Goschin, University of Innsbruck, Austria
• Lin Nan, LMU Munich/IIT Milan
• Daniel Glass, Illumina, UK