News and Highlights

2026

August

• Aug 3: Our collaborative work led by Prof. Fumiaki Miyamaru and colleagues at Shinshu University, “Programmable THz pulse shaping and frequency shifting using a cascade of spatial and temporal boundaries,” has been published in APL Photonics. Congratulations to everyone involved!

July

• Jul 9: The work with our collaborators from LPENS (Paris, France), Ultra-broadband THz emission from one- and two-color laser-induced microplasmas at a high repetition rate, has been published in Optica. 

June

• Jun 27: Tatsunosuke won the Excellent Poster Award at the 7th International Symposium on Microwave/Terahertz Science and Application (MTSA 2026). Congratulation!

January

• Jan 19: Our paper on driving Floquet physics with excitonic fields has been published in Nature Physics.
• Jan 3: Our work on phenol degradation using TiO₂ photocatalysts with dual sensitizer (Nd³⁺/Yb³⁺) has been published in Applied Surface Science.

2025

November

• Nov 24: Our collaborative work on brain imaging using PEEM, led by Pr. Kasthuri (Chicago) and involving PEEM teams from around the world, was published in PNAS.

October

• Oct 23: Our work on Studying EDAI passivation of perovskite photovoltaic materials using PEEM  now published in Elsevier. Congratulation to everyone involved.
• Oct 08: Takumi's paper on Interlayer Sheer phonons in lattice symmetry switching in TMDCs  now published in Physical Review B. Congratulation!

July

• Jul 10: Our paper on A holistic view of the dynamics of long-lived valley polarized dark excitonic states in monolayer WS₂ published in Nature Communications. Congratulations to everyone involved.

June

• Jun 19: Julien and Keshav wrote a  News & Views in  Nature Physics on the observation of Floquet states in graphene.
• Jun 22: Ruotian and Prajakta's paper on Revealing Effect of Surface Hydroxyl Variation on Charge Spatiotemporal Dynamics in Photocatalysis had been published in Journal of American Chemical Society. Congratulation!

January

• Jan 30: Prof. Dani has been elected as a member of Optica Fellows 2025 for his contribution on time-resolved imaging, in real- and momentum-space, of defects in perovskite photovoltaic materials and excitons in two-dimensional semiconductors.

2024

May

• May 19: Our collaborative work with Shinshu University on terahertz waves down-conversion published in Nanophotonics.

April

• Apr 26: Our review on time-resolved photoemission electron microscopy published in Progress in Surface Science.
• Apr 24: Our collaborative work with Prof. Fumiaki Miyamaru on terahertz pulse attenuation management had been published in Physical Review Applied.

2023

December

• Dec 20: Prof. Dani is one of the two OIST faculty memebers had been awarded the 2023 JSPS Prize.

August

• Aug 21: Prof. Dani's interview as one of the Winners of the Falling Walls Summit 2023 now online. 

• Aug. 16: Our work in 'Imaging momentum forbidden dark excitons' recognized as one of the top ten breakthroughs in the physical sciences globally by the Falling Walls Foundation for 2023.

July

• Jul. 11: Our review on using time resolved momentum microscopy to image photo induced phenomena in 2D materials published in Advanced Materials.

June

• Jun 29: TJ’s paper on terahertz excitonics in carbon nanotubes was awarded the 16th Kondo Prize Research Paper category.
• Jun 23: Julien and Keshav published a News & Views on High Harmonic Generation in confinement in Nature Physics.

2022

May

• May 24: Our work with Stranks group on discovering that nanoscale phase impurities are degradation sites in halide perovskites published in Nature.
   

March

• Mar. 9: Arka’s paper on competing energy and charge transfer process in transition metal dichalcogenides heterostructure published online in ACS Nano.
• Mar. 9: Our work on imaging the structure of the interlayer moiré excitons published in Nature. 

2021

December

• Dec. 9: Sonya's work featured on the inside front cover of Energy & Environmental Science.
   

November

• Nov. 22: Our collaborative work led by the group of Prof. Samuel D. Stranks on nanoscale optoelectronic landscape of alloyed perovskite solar cells published in Nature Nanotechnology.

September

• Sep. 15: Sonya's paper on varied nature and roles of defects in hybrid perovskites published online as an Advanced Article in Energy & Environmental Science.
• Sep. 1: Our collaborative work led by the group of Prof. Yoshinori Okada on superconductivity in doped Weyl semimetals published in Physical Review B.

July

• Jul. 30: Our collaborative work led by the group of Prof. Fumiaki Miyamaru demonstrating frequency conversion at the temporal boundary in the THz region published in Physical Review Letters.
• Jul. 5: Topical review of trends in ultrafast spectroscopy of condensed matter published in Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter including our contribution towards time-resolved photoemission spectroscopies.

May

• May 24: Our review on high field terahertz generation with lithium niobate published in Photonics.

April

• Apr. 27: Our review on photoconductive terahertz emitters published in the Journal of Optics.
• Apr. 21: Our work on imaging the distribution of the electron around the hole in an exciton was published in Science Advances.
• Apr. 20: Our collaborative work studying high-harmonic generation in black phosphorus, led by Tanaka group published in PRB. 

February

• Feb. 4: Joel's paper on THz patch antenna microcavities lasers published in ACS Photonics.
• Feb. 1: Julien's paper on directly visualizing momentum-forbidden dark excitons and their dynamics featured in Physics Today.

2020

December

• Dec. 4: Julien's paper on directly visualizing momentum-forbidden dark excitons and their dynamics published in Science! This work was highlighted in a  Perspective in the same issue and featured in Physics Today.

September

• Sept. 19: Chris' paper on plasmon-exciton coupling with conjugated polymers and AgNPs published in Polymers.

June

• June 4: Our collaborative photoemission study of phase transitions of IrTe₂, led by the Monney Group, was published in PRB.

May

• May 26: Dave's paper on photoconductive arrays for high-field terahertz was published in Optics Express.

April

• Apr. 15: Our work on halide perovskites co-led by Andrew (OIST) and Tiarnan Doherty (Cambridge) was published in Nature!

March

• Mar. 1: Rebecca and Michael's book chapter on nanoscale energy transport with TR-PEEM published in IOP publishing!

February

• Feb. 3: Diyar returns to the FSU with his student, Xiaojiang. Welcome to Diyar & Xiaojiang!

January

• Jan 2: Vivek's paper on exciton-exciton annihilation in atomically thin black phosphorous was accepted in PRL!

2019

December

• Dec. 14: Chris gave an invited talk on mixed-dimensional vdW heterostructures at LDMO 2019 in Shenzhen, China.

August

• Aug. 1: Dave joins the FSU as a postdoc from Leeds, UK. めんそーれ！

July

• July 28: Viktoras' paper on wide-field temporally focused microscopy published in Methods Protoc.
• July 1: Congrats to Julien on the promotion from post-doc to staff scientist!

June

• June 11: Welcome to Abdullah, who is visiting the FSU from SUNY-Farmingdale!
• June 4: Nick returns to the FSU as a technician. Welcome back, Nick!
• June 3: Chris' paper on charge transfer between conjugated polymers and MoS₂ was published in Mol. Syst. Des. Eng.
• June 1: Welcome to Oksana, who joins the FSU as a technician from ILTPE, Ukraine! 

May

• May 22: Lincoln joins the FSU as a research intern, joining us from Saikat Talapatra's group in Illinois. Welcome!
• May 16: Xing returns to the FSU as a rotation student. Welcome back, Xing!

April

• Apr. 1: Welcome to Arka, who is joining the FSU as a postdoc, previously from SUNY Buffalo. ようこそ！

March

• Mar. 12: Congratulations to Joel for winning the Best Poster Award at the OTST Conference in Santa Fe, New Mexico! (see banner)
• Mar. 1: Elaine started working as a postdoc in the group. Congratulations!

February

• Feb. 18: Lisa joins the FSU as an intern from Rupert Huber's group in Regensburg. Welcome to Okinawa!

2018

December

• Dec. 11: Welcome to Mohamed, who joins the FSU as an intern from Zewail City, Egypt!
• Dec. 5: Thanasis' theoretical investigation on Ultrafast Dynamics in Laser Ablated GaAs published in PRB.

November

• Nov. 28: More of our collabroative work with the Weber Group on Dirac and Weyl fermions published in APL.
• Nov. 20: Alina joins the FSU as a visiting researcher from Jun Kono's lab in Rice. Welcome!

October

• Oct. 8: Our collaborative work with the Weber Group on coherent phonons in a Dirac semimetal published in PRB.
• Oct. 2: Shukai returns to the FSU to continue his magnetic field experiments. Welcome back, Shukai!

September

• Sept. 7: Elaine's paper on pulling apart photoexcited electrons is now online in Science Advances.

August

• Aug. 3: Chris presented an invited talk on organic-2D heterojunctions at PIERS 2018 in Toyama, Japan.

July

• July 31: Dr. Elaine Wong received her PhD and will continue in the FSU as a Junior Research Fellow.
• July 13: Ricardo joins the FSU as a visiting researcher from Mexico. Welcome to Okinawa!

June

• June 21: Welcome to Stuart, who joins the FSU as a JSPS summer fellow from the University of Cambridge.
• June 13: Elaine successfully defended her thesis! Congrats, Elaine!
• June 13: Our paper on THz photoconductivity in vdW laminates was accepted for publication in Semicond. Sci. Tech.

May

• May 16: Sahoo and Monika join the FSU from Univ. Hyderabad and Northeastern Univ., respectively. Welcome to Okinawa!

April

• Apr. 1: Keshav was promoted to Associate Professor. Congratulations!!

March

• Mar. 5: Our collaborative work with the Shannon Unit on graphene quantum dots was published in Physical Review B.

January

• Jan. 15: FSU welcomes 4 new members: Rebecca, Maki, Sonya, and Nick. Welcome to the unit!

2017

December

• Dec. 21: Vivek won the Materials Horizons Poster Prize at ICANN-2017 in Guwahati, India. Congratulations, Vivek!
• Dec. 12: Our work on high-temperature THz optical diode effect was accepted for publication in Physics Review Letters.
• Dec. 9: Our paper on ultrafast dynamics in Dirac and Weyl semimetals is now online in Jorunal of Applied Physics.
• Dec. 1: Michael was promoted from post-doc to staff scientist. Congratulations!!

October

• Oct. 2: Xing and Kalyani join the unit as interns. Welcome to Okinawa!

September

• Sept. 19: Our work on magnetoelectricity in Ni-doped CaBaCo₄O₇ published in Phys. Rev. B.
• Sept. 05: Welcome to Sachie, who joins the unit as a rotation student and is a recent graduate of Keio University. ようこそ！
• Sept. 05: Joel officially joins the FSU as an PhD student. Welcome back, Joel!

August

• Aug. 22: Carolina joins FSU as a visiting researcher from Mexico. Welcome Carolina!

July

• July 30: FSU hosts Prof. Chris Weber and his student Matthew for 6 weeks. Youkoso!
• July 06: Julien's paper on engineering losses and beam divergence in patch antenna arrays is now available online.
• July 03: Kasturie joins the Femto Unit as a research intern. Welcome Kasturie!

June

• June 13: Keshav published a commentary in Physics Today on pursuing science across nationalities and disciplines.
• June 10: Prof. Diyar Talbayev and his student Shukai visited FSU for 2 and 7 weeks, respectively.

May

• May 10: Welcome to our new rotation students, Dong Cao and Mohamed Atwa.

March

• Mar. 16: Keshav presented an invited talk on imaging the motion of electrons at APS March Meeting in New Orleans, USA.
• Mar. 1: Welcome to Manami, who joins the Femto Unit as a research intern from Hokkaido University.

February

• Feb. 21: Michael presented an invited talk at the 7^th Congress on Materials Research and Technology in Berlin, Germany.
• Feb. 1: Keshav gave an invited talk on TR-PEEM of 2D heterostructures at SPIE Photonics West in San Francisco, CA, USA.

January

• Jan. 26: Our paper with the Art Conservation Program on femtosecond laser cutting of artwork published in Materials.
• Jan. 10: Our work in charge cinematography was featured on the front cover of the Jan. 2017 issue of Nature Nanotech.

2016

December

• December 13th: Aliya Mari Adefuin rotates through the Femto unit.

November

• November 16th: Our work with Nanyang Technological University and Kyoto University on femtosecond dynamics of the nitrogen-vacancy defect in diamond published in Nat. Commun.
• November 8th: Chris' paper on plasmonic metasurface-enhanced MoS₂-organic heterojunctions published in ACS Nano.
• November 3rd: Our work with the Wickens Unit on interfacing with neural activity via femtosecond laser stimulation published in eNeuro.

October

• October 10th: Michael's paper on imaging the motion of electrons in semiconductors published in Nat. Nanotechnol.
• October 4th: Julien's paper on patch antenna microcavity terahertz sources published in Appl. Phys. Lett.

September

• September 11th-15th: Michael, Elaine, and Andrew present at the 10th LEEM/PEEM, Monterey (USA).
• September 8th: Joel Pérez Urquizo rotates through the Femto Unit.
• September 8th: Vivek Pareek joins the Femto Unit as a PhD student. Welcome Vivek!

July

• July 13th - 16th: The Femto Unit hosts Ultrafast Dynamics at the Nanoscale 2016 at OIST.
• July 1st: Chris Petoukhoff returns to the Femto Unit as a Special Research Student.

June

• June 13th - 17th: Michael presents a talk at Graphene Week 2016, Warsaw (Poland).
• June 5th - 10th: Julien and Taka present talks at CLEO 2016, CA (USA).
• June 5th - 9th: Michael presents a talk at CIMTEC Congress 2016, Perugia (Italy).
• June 2nd: Camille joins the Femto Unit as a research intern.

May

• May 2nd: Sébastien rotates through the Femto unit.

April

• April 8th: Keshav presents an invited talk in TERAMETANANO Conference, Cartagena, Colombia
• April 5th: Taka and Bryan present posters in RD2DS Workshop at OIST, Okinawa, Japan.
• April 4th: Keshav presents an invited talk in RD2DS Workshop at OIST, Okinawa, Japan.

March

• March 31st: Chris Petoukhoff presents a talk in Materials Research Society Spring Conference, AZ (USA).
• March 31st: Dylan Renaud (NanoJapan Intern 2015) wins Honorable Mention in prestigious Goldwater Fellowship
• March 9th: Keshav presents a talk at Rice University, TX (USA).
• March 3rd: Our work on Second Harmonic Generation in few-layer InSe published in Scientific Reports.

February

• February 12th: Our work on Protecting properties of monolayer MoS₂ on Silicon substrates published in Scientific Reports.
• February 4th: Our work on Oxidation of Planar and Plasmonic Ag Surfaces published in MRS Advances.

January

• January 25th - 29th: Keshav presents a talk at International Symposium on Functional Materials 2016, Okinawa, Japan.
• January 12th: Vivek Pareek rotates through the Femto unit.
• January 12th: Bryan Berggren and Natalie Foster join the Femto unit as research interns.

2015

November

• November 18th: Michael presents a poster at 6th FOCUS PEEM workshop, Hünstetten (Germany).
• November 16th - 19th: Balu presents a talk at EMN meeting on Ultrafast Research, NV (USA).
• November 11th - 15th: Dylan Renaud wins 1st place poster in SHPE conference 2015.
• November 6th - February 1st 2016: Christoph Neumann visits the Femto Unit.

October

• October 3rd - 11th: Prof Charles Schmuttenmaer, Kevin Regan and Coleen Nemes visit the Femto Unit.

September

• September 22nd: Keshav presents an invited talk at Physical Sciences Symposia-2015, MA (USA).
• September 1st - December 18th: Jason Ball rotates through the Femto Unit.
• September 1st: Andrew Winchester joins the Femto Unit.

August

• August 28th: Skylar presents a poster and awarded in 2015 Summer Research Colloquium, Tulane University, LA (USA).
• August 17th: Femto Unit's work on Novel photophenomina in van der Waals heterostructure published in Adv. Opt. Mater.

July

• July 16th: Prof Chris Weber and Bryan Berggren visit the Femto Unit for the summer.
• July 15th: Femto Unit's work on Ultrafast photoresponse in MoS₂ films published in Scientific Reports.
• July 10th: Femto Unit's work on Femtosecond-laser-ablated terahertz antennas published in Opt. Letters.
• July 1st: Keshav presents a talk at  Symposium of MTSA 2015 & TeraNano 2015, Okinawa, Japan.

June

• June 30th - July 4th: The Femto Unit hosts Symposium of MTSA 2015 & TeraNano 2015 at OIST.
• June 28th - July 3rd: Balu presents a talk at ICMAT 2015 in Suntec, Singapore.
• June 24th - 28th: Viktoras attends the 20th International C. elegans Meeting, University of California, LA (USA).
• June 22nd - 25th: E Laine attends UXSS 2015 in Hamburg, Germany.
• June 12th: Chris Petoukhoff presents a poster in JSPS Summer Fellowship Meeting, Hayama, Japan.
• June 12th: Chris Petoukhoff joins the Femto Unit as an EAPSI/JSPS fellow.
• June 9th: Dylan Renaud joins the Femto Unit as a NanoJapan 2015 IREU intern.
• June 2nd: Ari Gilman joins the Femto Unit as a research intern.

May

• May 10th - 15th: Balu presents a talk at CLEO 2015.
• May 8th: Keshav presents a seminar at Sandia National Lab, Albuquerque, NM (USA).

April

• April 27th: Yumi Ito joins the Femto Unit as a Research Administrator.
• April 21st: Jingjing Zhang joins the Femto Unit as a research intern.
• April 15th: Viktoras Lisicovas joins the Femto Unit as a part of collaboration with Maruyama Unit.
• April 1st: Dr. Taka Harada joins the Femto Unit as a postdoc.

January

• Jan 23rd: Our work on optically inducing magnetic moments in graphene quantum dots is published in Phys. Rev. B.
• Jan 6th: Skylar and Dibya join the Femto Unit as research interns.

2014

August

• Aug 4th-6th: The Femto Unit hosts the International Symposium on Frontier of Terahertz Science.

July

• Jul 2nd: Reuben Harding joins the Femto Unit for his internship.
• Jul 1st: Dr. Julien Madeo joins the Femto Unit as a postdoc.

June

• Jun 23: Our work on mimicking neurotransmitter dynamics using femtosecond pulses is published in Scientific Reports.
• Jun 8: Juliana and Skylar join the Femto Unit for their intership as NanoJapan students.

May

• May 14: Keshav presents invited talk at Novel Quantum Materials and Phases.
• May 14-17: Andrew, Balu, Eleftheria & Michael present posters at Novel Quantum Materials and Phases.

March

• Mar 10 & 11: The Femtosecond Spectroscopy Unit hosts the Joint ISSP-OIST Symposium.
• Mar 3rd-7th: Balu, Eleftheria, and Michael present talks at the 2014 APS March Meeting, Denver, CO.

January

• Jan 28th: Andrew Winchester joins the Femto Unit.
• Jan 25th: Microscopy Lab begins move to permanent location.
• Jan 10th: Dr. Bala Murali Krishna Mariserala presents seminar at IIT, Indore, India.
• Jan 8th: Keshav presents seminar at IISc, Bangalore, INDIA.
• Jan 6th - Jul 5th: Prof. Saikat Talapatra joins Femto Unit as JSPS Visiting Faculty
• Jan 5th, 6th: Keshav presents seminar at Univ. of Hyderabad, INDIA.

2013

December

• Dec 23rd: Keshav presents seminar at TIFR, Mumbai, India.

November

• Nov 20th: Keshav presents seminar at ISSP, Univ. of Tokyo, Kashiwa Campus.
• Nov 28th: Keshav presents invited talk at Beam Physics Workshop 2013, Okinawa Japan.

August

• Jun 5th: Keshav presents seminar at Lund University, Sweden.

July

• Jul 22nd-23rd: Keshav presents invited talk at MTSA 2013.
• Jul 9th-Aug 23rd:Yuecel Kaptan (TU Berlin) visits Femto Unit.
• Jul 9th-16th: Prof. Jerome Tignon(Ecole Normale Superieure, France) visits Femto Unit.
• Jul 5th-8th: NanoJapan mid program meeting takes place at OIST.

June

• Jun 12th: Pete presents at CLEO.
• Jun 9th-14th: Keshav and Pete attend CLEO, San Jose, CA, USA.
• Jun 7th: Prof. Chiko Otani (Riken, Sendai) visits Femto Unit.
• Jun 4th: Keshav presents a seminar at Los Alamos National Laboratory, NM, USA.

May

• May 19th-21st: Prof. Jun Kono (Rice Univ., USA) Prof. Masayoshi Tonouchi (Osaka Univ.) visit Femto Unit.
• May 18th-25th: Prof. Saikat Talapatra (Southern Illinois Univ. Carbondale, USA) visits Femto Unit.
• May 13th 2013: Dr. Bala Murali Krishna joins Femto Unit.
• May 11th-12th: Prof. Ivan Parkin & Davinder Bachu (UCL, UK) visit Femto Unit.

April

• Apr. 10th-13th: Dr. Jean Maysonnave (ENS, Paris) visits Femto Unit.
• Apr. 6th-9th: Prof. Diyar Talbayev (Tulane Univ.) visits Femto Unit.
• Apr 1st-5th: Keshav, Pete and Catherine attend OTST, Kyoto, Japan.

March

• Mar 28th-31st: Dr. Harold Hwang (MIT & BU) visits Femto Unit.
• Mar 18th-22nd: Atish and Eleftheria present at APS March Meeting, Baltimore, MD, USA.
• Mar 7th: First LEED pattern on Au/SiO2.
• Mar 6th-19th: Dr. B M Krishna Mariserla (Univ. of Hyderabad, India) visits Femto Unit.

February

• 4th Feb: LEEM/PEEM installation begins.

January

• Jan. 24th: Snr. Adviser to Pres. of Univ. of Tokyo & Former Swedish Ambss., Mr. Noreen visits Femto Unit.
• Jan. 10th: Keshav presents seminar at Univ. College London, UK.

2012

December

• Dec. 3rd: Dr. Michael Man joins the Femto Unit.

November

• Nov. 28th: Keshav presents seminar at Univ. of Tokyo.
• Nov. 24th: High Energy Lab gets its first THz signal.

October

• Oct 9th-10: Keshav presents invited seminar at RIKEN, Sendai.

September

• Sep 29th - Oct. 1st: Prof. Dr. Ulrike Woggon (Technical University Berlin) visits Femto Unit.
• Sep 23-25th: Dr. Michael Man (Hong Kong Univ. of Science and Technology) visits Femto Unit.
• Sep 19th: Spitfire ACE (5mJ, 1kHz) with 4mJ-TOPAS and 1mJ-TOPAS arrive.
• Sep 18, 19th: Dr. Hugo Ribeiro & Julia Hildeman (Univ. of Konstanz) visit Femto Unit.
• Sep 5th, 6th: Keshav presents an invited talk at Crystal & Graphene Science Symposium, Boston 2012.

August

• Aug 27, 28th: Dr. Nathan Jukham (Ruhr-Universität Bochum) visits Femto Unit.
• Aug 14th-26th: Eleftheria presents a poster at the 6th Windsor Summer School.
• Aug 2nd-8th: Dr. Gargi Sharma (INRS-EMT, Quebec, Canada) visits Femto Unit.

July

• Jul 4th, 5th: Keshav presents an invited talk at TerraNano 2012, Okinawa.
• Jul 3rd: Prof. Dr. rer. nat. Rupert Huber (Universitat Regensburg) visits Femto Unit.

June

• Jun 29th: Keshav & Rakesh teach at Onna Children's Science Camp.
• Jun 15th: Dr. Peter Hale joins the Femtosecond Spectroscopy Unit.

May

• May 19th: Atish Agarwala arrives for his summer internship with the Femto Unit.
• May 12th-18th: Keshav attends ICQD 2012, Santa Fe, NM, US
• May 11th: Dr. Eleftheria Kavousanaki and Dr. Grigoris Panotopoulos join the Femto Unit
• May 6th-11th: Keshav attends CLEO 2012, San Jose, CA, US.
• May 4th: Rakesh presents Thesis Seminar at Cochin Univ. of Sci. & Tech., (CUSAT) India.

April

• Apr 11th-22nd: Dr. Peter Hale (Univ. of Exeter) visits Femto Unit.