Researchers from the Centre E3 Centre of Excellence: Monika Tomczyk, Piotr Piotrowski and Dorota A. Pawlak, in collaboration with a team of researchers from our consortium partner, Sapienza Università di Roma: Emilija Petronijevic, Concita Sibilia, Alessandro Belardini, Marco Centini, Grigore Leahu, Roberto Li Voti and Maria Cristina Larciprete conducted research on the new optical properties of self-organized eutectic composite consisting of parallel ZnO thin layers (lamellae) embedded in a dielectric ZnWO4 matrix.

The results of this study were published in an article entitled: Surprising Eutectics: Enhanced Properties of ZnO-ZnWO4 from Visible to MIR in the journal Advanced Materials, which can be found in the online version at the link:https://lnkd.in/gHdeYbDh

Remarkable active and passive polarization control of ZnO-ZnWO4 composite over various wavelength ranges are shown; these properties are based on the crystal orientation of ZnO with respect to the biaxiality of the ZnWO4 matrix. In the visible range, polarization-dependent polarized luminescence occurs for blue light emitted by ZnO. Moreover, it is reported on the enhancement of the second harmonic generation of the composite with respect to its constituents, due to the phase matching condition. Finally, in the medium infrared spectral region, the composite behaves as a metamaterial with strong polarization dependence.