João Cunha
Fellow
Joao Cunha is a Research Fellow at the Atomic Structure-Composition of Materials group.
He obtained his MSc degree in Engineering Physics from Instituto Superior Tecnico in Portugal, with master’s thesis work conducted at Thales Research and Technology in France. He then joined the Advanced Concepts Team of the European Space Agency (ACT-ESA). At ACT-ESA, he worked on several research projects employing nanotechnology to design future spacecraft systems, including initiating solar rectenna research within ESA. He received his PhD in Materials Physics and Chemistry from the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2021 for his work on optical-to-thermal energy conversion and nanoscale photo-induced temperature profiles in plasmonic nanostructures. He is currently a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellow working at the interface of photonics and energy conversion and storage fields. He is a member of Optica (former Optical Society of America) and The Electrochemical Society. He has authored/co-authored several peer-reviewed publications, contributes regularly to international conferences, and is co-inventor of a granted patent.
Selected Publications
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Heat and Temperature Localization via Fabry-Perot Resonances at the Tip of a Nanofocusing Cone
ADVANCED OPTICAL MATERIALS, 2022 -
High-Frequency Light Rectification by Nanoscale Plasmonic Conical Antenna in Point-Contact-Insulator-Metal Architecture
ADVANCED ENERGY MATERIALS, 2022 -
Photoinduced Temperature Gradients in Sub-Wavelength Plasmonic Structures: The Thermoplasmonics of Nanocones
Advanced Optical Materials, Volume 8, Issue 18, September 18, 2020, 2000568, 2020 -
Controlling Light, Heat, and Vibrations in Plasmonics and Phononics
Advanced Optical Materials 2020, 8, 2001225, 2020 -
Tuning temperature gradients in subwavelength plasmonic nanocones with tilted illumination
Optics Letters Vol. 45, Issue 19, pp. 5472-5475 (2020), 2020