Mario registered as a PhD student at the University of Montpellier and will carry out the majority of his research in the IES lab. To improve the efficiency of diagnosis in the case of illness, it is necessary to develop high sensitivity and high selectivity systems to detect diseases. One way is to use system based on localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR), exploiting their properties of electric field enhancement, to detect directly the molecules of interest. In this project, we want to explore the possibility to replace gold by highly doped semiconductor (HDSC) in plasmonic systems because of their adaptable permittivity (by doping monitoring) and CMOS compatibility. We will first define the most adapted plasmonic structures based on all-semiconductor approach (with Tyndall-UCC). Second the bio-functionalisation will be done with SiKéMIA (SME). Finally the bio-sensor will be done and characterized at UM.

Mario is originally from Vreden, a German town near the Dutch border. He did a social year in Beit Uri, which is a home for people with special needs situated in Israel. Mario completed his BSc and MSc in physics at the FU Berlin. He spent an Erasmus year at the ENS Lyon. For his master thesis Mario joined the Young Investigator Group NanooptiX at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin to work on a photochemical method to investigate the plasmonic enhancement effect of non-ordered silver nanoparticles.

Mario got first experiences in the field of semiconductor physics at the Photonics group of the HU Berlin. As part of the PROMIS network, he will continue to work on semiconductor plasmonics with a focus on design, technological processing and biofunctionalization at the University of Montpellier.

Mon 21 December 2015