This edition of the “Photonics Worldwide- This is my Lab” column features Isabel Allegro, a PhD student from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany, who works on new perovskites for laser applications.

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Senta Jantzen – S.Jantzen@ieee.org

My name is Isabel Allegro and I am a Ph.D. student at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) in Germany, in the group of Prof. Uli Lemmer. Originally, I come from Portugal where I earned my bachelor’s degree in Physics Engineering, and I ended up in Karlsruhe, Germany, due to its strong standing in photonics, both in academia and in industry. I did my master’s in Optics and Photonics here and joined the group of Prof. Uli Lemmer for my PhD to do research on lasers.

My current research focuses on lead halide perovskite semiconductors for lasing applications. These perovskites are a new class of materials that combine the advantages of organic and inorganic semiconductors: They can be fabricated with high crystal quality by spin coating and solution processing, while exhibiting excellent optoelectronic properties and enabling low threshold lasing. I fabricate perovskite thin films and investigate their photocarrier dynamics, in particular the interplay between radiative and non-radiative recombination mechanisms relevant for lasing. Besides that, I develop novel resonator structures to integrate with the optimized films with the goal of achieving a low threshold perovskite laser. Maybe one day you will be reading this on a perovskite laser AR display.