Hannah Stern

Postdoctoral Researcher

Home Faculty Advisor: Dr. Akshay Rao, Department of Physics, University of Cambridge

Host Faculty Advisor: Professor Naomi Ginsberg, Department of Chemistry, UC Berkeley

Hannah obtained a BSc in Chemistry, from the University of Otago, New Zealand graduating top of the year. She then completed a Ph.D. with Professor Richard Friend in the Optoelectronics Group of the Physics Department, Cambridge, as a Winton Scholar. Currently, she holds a Junior Research Fellow at Trinity College, Cambridge since July 2017. Working between the groups of Professor David Klenerman and Dr. Steven Lee in the Chemistry Department, Professor Stephen Hoffman in the Department of Engineering and Dr. Akshay Rao in the Physics Department. Her research focus is to investigate using super-resolution photoluminescence techniques to probe defect states and structural heterogeneity in 2D material systems.

While in Berkeley Hannah worked primarily within the group of Professor Naomi Ginsberg, using a combination of diffraction-limited optical spectroscopic techniques to probe quantum emission in monolayers of hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN). h-BN is a 2D wide band-gap semiconductor that has recently been shown to display bright room-temperature single photon emission in the visible, sparking immense interest in the material as a solid-state quantum emitter for use in quantum communications. As part of this work, in collaboration with The Zettl research group in Berkeley, Hannah is investigating the structural properties and morphological dependence of h-BN single photon emission.