Daniel Shanks

Daniel Shanks is an MDL Next postdoc in the Microdevices Laboratory, working on advanced fabrication techniques applied towards superconducting nanowire single photon detectors. He received his undergraduate degree in physics from UCLA in 2017, where he performed research on nanopatterned cathodes as electron beam sources with enhanced quantum efficiency, and the design of a nitrogen cooled electron source with Professor Pietro Musumeci from 2015-2017. He received his Ph.D. in physics from the University of Arizona under the mentorship of Professor John Schaibley. His Ph.D. work involved using nanopatterned graphene to create custom electric field profiles within 2D semiconductor heterostructures, leading to electric slides for interlayer excitons, and lithographically defined quantum dot like potentials that showed signs of single exciton trapping for valleytronic quantum information applications. His continuing research interests include innovative nanofabrication techniques applied to superconducting devices, and the integration of 2D and 3D material fabrication processes.


Education: 
  • Ph. D., Physics, University of Arizona, 2022
  • B.S., Physics, UCLA 2017

Research Interests: 
  • Superconducting photon detectors
  • Novel nanofabrication techniques
  • 2D material-based devices



Selected Publications: 
  1. Shanks, Daniel N., et al. "Nanoscale trapping of interlayer excitons in a 2D semiconductor heterostructure." Nano letters 21.13 (2021): 5641-5647.
  2. Shanks, Daniel N., et al. "Single exciton trapping in an electrostatically defined 2D semiconductor quantum dot." arXiv preprint arXiv:2206.13427 (2022).
  3. Shanks, Daniel N., et al. “Interlayer Exciton Diode and Transistor.” Nano Letters, 22.16 (2022): 6599–605. 
Daniel
Address: 
4800 Oak Grove Dr
Pasadena, CA 91109
Phone: 4-1839