BrainMap

Ana Maria Mihaela Gherman

Researcher - INSTITUTUL NATIONAL DE CERCETARE DEZVOLTARE PENTRU TEHNOLOGII IZOTOPICE SI MOLECULARE I N C D T I M

Researcher

I am a physicist and Scientific Researcher specializing in computational photonics, plasmonics, and artificial intelligence. My research integrates electromagnetic modelling, machine learning, and experimental validation to investigate light–matter interactions and develop advanced optical sensing technologies. My work spans plasmonic nanostructures, Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SERS), ultrafast laser physics, and nanophotonics, with a particular focus on translating computational models into practical tools for materials design and optical diagnostics. I am interested in interdisciplinary research at the interface of physics, computational science, and AI.

Expertise & keywords

Achieving Enhanced Collective Molecular Emission through their Coupling with Nano-structured Metallic Surfaces Call name: PNCDI IV, SP 5.8.3 - Proiecte de mobilitate, PM-RO-FR-2024
PN-IV-P8-8.3-PM-RO-FR-2024-0163 2024 - 2025

Role in this project:

Coordinating institution: INSTITUTUL NATIONAL DE CERCETARE DEZVOLTARE PENTRU TEHNOLOGII IZOTOPICE SI MOLECULARE I N C D T I M

Project partners: INSTITUTUL NATIONAL DE CERCETARE DEZVOLTARE PENTRU TEHNOLOGII IZOTOPICE SI MOLECULARE I N C D T I M (RO); Centre de Recherche Paul Pascal (FR)

Affiliation:

Project website: https://www.itim-cj.ro/bilateral/summon/

Abstract:

In this project, we aim to achieve enhanced collective molecular emission through the coupling with nano-structured metallic surfaces. We will first theoretically (numerically) investigate, understand and design nano-structures able to favor the collective optical response of an ensemble of quantum emitters. Next, several types of metallic substrates will be obtained via bottom-up approaches for studying the collective optical response of an ensemble of fluorophores, i.e. the increased collective decay rates, and finally to apply our full new understanding to explore some niche advanced application (e,g, sensing, new light sources, smart anticounterfeiting tags). From a scientific point of view, this project has a potential impact on a fundamental understanding of light-matter interactions. It will lead to the acquisition of new and significant knowledge in the field of photonics (plasmonics in particular), advanced materials, and collective emission in such materials. The realization of the expected results can broadly benefit fundamental science, including chemistry, optics, and physics and lead to interdisciplinary breakthroughs in optics and plasmonics. For education, our project is beneficial to foster first-class research within a culture of innovation and collaboration between Romania and France, two European countries.

eXtreme ultraviolet to soft-X-ray Photonic Integrated Circuits Call name: EC - H2020
H2020-232658-964588 2021 - 2025

Role in this project:

Coordinating institution: POLITECNICO DI MILANO

Project partners: POLITECNICO DI MILANO (IT); INSTITUTUL NATIONAL DE CERCETARE-DEZVOLTARE PENTRU TEHNOLOGII IZOTOPICE SI MOLECULARE-INCDTIM CLUJ-NAPOCA (RO); CONSIGLIO NAZIONALE DELLE RICERCHE (IT); CLASS 5 PHOTONICS GMBH (DE)

Affiliation: INSTITUTUL NATIONAL DE CERCETARE-DEZVOLTARE PENTRU TEHNOLOGII IZOTOPICE SI MOLECULARE-INCDTIM CLUJ-NAPOCA (RO)

Project website:

Abstract:

Active tuning of plasmon resonances in gold nanoparticle arrays on elastomeric substrates for ultrasensitive dual MEF/SERS biosensing Call name: P 4 - Proiecte de Cercetare Exploratorie, 2020
PN-III-P4-ID-PCE-2020-1607 2022 - 2024

Role in this project:

Coordinating institution: INSTITUTUL NATIONAL DE CERCETARE DEZVOLTARE PENTRU TEHNOLOGII IZOTOPICE SI MOLECULARE I N C D T I M

Project partners: INSTITUTUL NATIONAL DE CERCETARE DEZVOLTARE PENTRU TEHNOLOGII IZOTOPICE SI MOLECULARE I N C D T I M (RO)

Affiliation:

Project website: https://www.itim-cj.ro/PNCDI/optigap/

Abstract:

The project titled Active tuning of plasmon resonances in gold nanoparticle arrays on elastomeric substrates for ultrasensitive dual MEF/SERS biosensing (OPTiGAP) aims to develop a disruptive approach to dual Metal-Enhanced Fluorescence (MEF)/ Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SERS) biosensing: plasmonic nanostructures will be designed such that both MEF and SERS can be excited by a single laser source, based on active tuning of localized surface plasmon resonances (LSPRs) favouring either MEF or SERS process. The dual MEF/SERS molecular sensing platform will exploit real-time mechanical tuning of LSPRs in designed gold nanoparticle arrays, allowing to modulate the electromagnetic field enhancements in nano-gaps such that the fingerprint-like SERS signal can be collected despite the overwhelming MEF intensity. After careful design based on electromagnetic simulations, gold nanoparticle arrays will be fabricated and characterized. Their plasmonic properties will be investigated and understood, in order to apply them for dual MEF/SERS detection of specific biomarkers as are membrane proteins used to differentiate/ classify various metastatic cancer cells (EGFR or EpCAM). The OPTiGAP project can contribute to expanding the use of MEF and SERS beyond proof-of-concepts studies into viable real-life applications, by developing biosensing protocols exploiting a fluorescence read-out for fast imaging and Raman fingerprinting for multiplexed molecular identification.

Nanostructured microfluidic analytical platform for dual SERS-electrochemical detection of emerging environmental pollutants Call name: EEA Grants - Proiecte Colaborative de Cercetare
RO-NO-2019-0517 2020 - 2024

Role in this project:

Coordinating institution: INSTITUTUL NATIONAL DE CERCETARE DEZVOLTARE PENTRU TEHNOLOGII IZOTOPICE SI MOLECULARE I N C D T I M

Project partners: INSTITUTUL NATIONAL DE CERCETARE DEZVOLTARE PENTRU TEHNOLOGII IZOTOPICE SI MOLECULARE I N C D T I M (RO); UNIVERSITATEA DE MEDICINA SI FARMACIE "IULIU HATIEGANU" (RO); SINTEF AS (NO); NANOM MEMS SRL (RO)

Affiliation: INSTITUTUL NATIONAL DE CERCETARE DEZVOLTARE PENTRU TEHNOLOGII IZOTOPICE SI MOLECULARE I N C D T I M (RO)

Project website: https://www.itim-cj.ro/polsens/

Abstract:

Environmental contamination with pesticides causes negative impact on soil, water, and whole ecosystems. Studies evidenced links between pesticides and diseases such as Parkinson’s, prostate cancer, immune depression, allergies, and others in population groups heavily exposed to pesticides. Chronic exposure to low levels of pesticides also raises toxicity concerns. Persistent organic pollutants (POPs) are a class of very dangerous pollutants, capable of long-range transport, bio-accumulation in human and animal tissue, and bio-magnification in food chains. In such an exposed environment almost everyone has POPs in their body, including newborns or even embryos. Highly accessible analytical platforms for fast, selective and decentralized detection of dangerous chemicals are therefore of very high demand.

Within this project we propose to develop sensing platforms able to detect environmental pollutants by simultaneous optical spectroscopy and electrochemistry. A nanostructured plasmonic chip will be the core of the spectro-electrochemical sensor combining the advantages of highly specific and sensitive surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) to the versatility, portability, and low costs of electrochemical (EC) sensing. The dual SERS-EC sensing platform will be integrated in a microfluidic system, in order to benefit from reproducible measurements due to highly defined environment, easy handling of small sample volumes, high throughput detection, and even sample preparation and mixing procedures in continuous flow. Additionally, a second dual sensing cell based on common spectrophotometer cuvettes, for ml-scale sample volumes will be developed. The proof of concept will be demonstrated on organohalide pesticide endosulfan, an emerging pollutant (EP) selected from the new POPs list of the Stockholm Convention and the JRC Watch List. Extending the adaptability of the proposed sensing platform to the detection of other environmental pollutants (e.g. lamda-cyhalotrin, thiabendazole) will be also pursued. Our research aims to provide sensing platforms by which these substances can be detected in surface waters samples and also to contribute to the scientific data regarding POPs accumulation and distribution. The design and experimental development of the SERS-electrochemical sensor aims for device portability for field (in-situ) applications, such as monitoring EPs in surface waters at critical sites (e.g. in the vicinity of a possible pollution source).

To overcome the involved scientific and technical challenges and achieve the proposed objectives, a diverse range of expertise, skills and infrastructure capacities are combined: optical simulations and experiments, nanofabrication, microsystems technologies and microfluidics, advanced characterisation tools, plasmonics, surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy, DFT calculations, electrochemistry, gas chromatography, chemometric tools. The proposed consortium is a highly trained and experienced one, relatively young, and with a very good gender balance. No ethical issues implying human or animal testing are raised by the implementation of this project.

Caracterizarea si ajustarea pulsurilor laser prin experiment, software de reconstructie si oglinda adaptiva Call name: P 5 - SP 5.1 - ELI-RO-2020
IFA-2020-ELI_03/01.10.2020 2020 - 2023

Role in this project:

Coordinating institution: Institutul National de Cercetare-Dezvoltare pentru Tehnologii Izotopice si Moleculare Cluj-Napoca

Project partners: Institutul National de Cercetare-Dezvoltare pentru Tehnologii Izotopice si Moleculare Cluj-Napoca (RO); Institutul National de Cercetare Dezvoltare pentru Fizica si Inginerie Nucleara „Horia Hulubei” (RO)

Affiliation: Institutul National de Cercetare-Dezvoltare pentru Tehnologii Izotopice si Moleculare Cluj-Napoca (RO)

Project website:

Abstract:

The main purpose of this project is to develop a fast numerical instrument which performs the complete temporal-spectral reconstruction of the ultrashort laser pulses at ELI-NP facility.
In laser physics laboratories in general, and at ELI-NP in particular ultrashort pulses with duration from femtoseconds down to attoseconds are routinely generated. Their application ranges from exploring the fundamental constituents of matter from nuclear processes to electronic processes in atoms, molecules, solids to application even in medicine. The exact temporal and spectral shape of such pulses is crucially important, but difficult to measure. Experimental pulse characterization methods have been developed, like the frequency resolved optical gating (FROG) and the dispersion scan (D-scan). These methods work well experimentally, but as raw result they yield a complicated 2D image, so called trace. Very time consuming and slowly converging iterative retrieval algorithms are necessary to reconstruct the spectral amplitude and phase of the studied pulse from the measured trace.
Here we propose to develop a software based on artificial neural networks (ANN) for the complete reconstruction of laser pulses generated at ELI-NP. ANNs are high performance and high speed deep learning algorithms, which have been successfully used in diverse nonlinear problems and applications like image and pattern recognition, classification, identification.
Our research group at INCDTIM (Cluj-Napoca) has previous experiences in modeling ultrashort laser pulse propagation in ionizing medium, as well as exploring ANN for prediction purposes in nonlinear physical and chemical processes. We have part of code at basic level of development and we propose to further develop and extend the ANN code in order to be able to receive as input the 2D dispersion scan trace, and yield as predicted output the spectral amplitude and phase of the unknown pulse. Our goal is to demonstrate the method's scientific feasibility and critical properties through proof-of-concept experiments, i.e. teach the ANN to reconstruct the real laser pulses from the experimentally measured traces which will be provided by the partner group at ELI-NP.
An adaptive mirror will be introduced in the diagnostics beamline with the purpose to correct the phase front distortions of the laser pulse which are inevitably present due to propagation effects and beam steering. The software will be extended to assess the effects of wavefront distortions on the focusing and pulse measurements.
The project will directly contribute to the laser system development at ELI-NP, offering solutions for problems related to Alignment and Diagnostics, Pulse shaping, Adaptive optics and Quality of focus.

Laser pulse propagation at relativistic intensities Call name:
03ELI 2016 - 2019

Role in this project:

Coordinating institution: INSTITUTUL NATIONAL DE CERCETARE DEZVOLTARE PENTRU TEHNOLOGII IZOTOPICE SI MOLECULARE I N C D T I M

Project partners: INSTITUTUL NATIONAL DE CERCETARE DEZVOLTARE PENTRU TEHNOLOGII IZOTOPICE SI MOLECULARE I N C D T I M (RO); INSTITUTUL NATIONAL DE CERCETARE - DEZVOLTARE PENTRU FIZICA SI INGINERIE NUCLEARA " HORIA HULUBEI " - IFIN - HH (RO)

Affiliation: INSTITUTUL NATIONAL DE CERCETARE DEZVOLTARE PENTRU TEHNOLOGII IZOTOPICE SI MOLECULARE I N C D T I M (RO)

Project website: https://www.itim-cj.ro/eli3/index.htm

Abstract:

Femtosecond pulse shaping to control attosecond pulse generation Call name: Projects for Young Research Teams - RUTE -2014 call
PN-II-RU-TE-2014-4-0425 2015 - 2017

Role in this project:

Coordinating institution: INSTITUTUL NATIONAL DE CERCETARE DEZVOLTARE PENTRU TEHNOLOGII IZOTOPICE SI MOLECULARE I N C D T I M

Project partners: INSTITUTUL NATIONAL DE CERCETARE DEZVOLTARE PENTRU TEHNOLOGII IZOTOPICE SI MOLECULARE I N C D T I M (RO)

Affiliation: INSTITUTUL NATIONAL DE CERCETARE DEZVOLTARE PENTRU TEHNOLOGII IZOTOPICE SI MOLECULARE I N C D T I M (RO)

Project website: http://www.itim-cj.ro/PNCDI/ru185/index.htm

Abstract:

During this project we intend to develop a numerical method for shaping femtosecond laser pulses to optimize the controlled generation of attosecond pulses which are used in time-resolved pump-probe experiments. We propose a fundamental type research, which contributes to a deeper understanding of the dynamics of electrons on the attosecond time scale. We will elaborate the pulse shaping method based on optimizing the electron trajectories in high-order harmonic generation (HHG) in two-color driving fields. The main goal of the project is to offer, as a final deliverable, a useful numerical tool for experimental groups in order to find the optimal configuration of their particular HHG setup and generate both intense and high-energy XUV (soft X-ray) attosecond pulses. The main goal of the project is to fill the gap between the results of theoretical calculations for the ideal waveform in HHG and the real experimental possibilities existing in laboratories.

Ultrafast laser Facility with Optimized high order harmonics UltraViolet sources Call name: Joint Applied Research Projects - PCCA-2011 call, Type 1
PN-II-PT-PCCA-2011-3.1-0886 2012 - 2016

Role in this project:

Coordinating institution: INSTITUTUL NATIONAL DE CERCETARE DEZVOLTARE PENTRU FIZICA LASERILOR, PLASMEI SI RADIATIEI - INFLPR RA

Project partners: INSTITUTUL NATIONAL DE CERCETARE DEZVOLTARE PENTRU FIZICA LASERILOR, PLASMEI SI RADIATIEI - INFLPR RA (RO); INSTITUTUL NATIONAL DE CERCETARE DEZVOLTARE PENTRU TEHNOLOGII IZOTOPICE SI MOLECULARE I N C D T I M (RO); UNIVERSITATEA POLITEHNICA DIN BUCURESTI (RO); INSTITUTUL NATIONAL DE CERCETARE - DEZVOLTARE PENTRU FIZICA MATERIALELOR BUCURESTI RA (RO)

Affiliation: INSTITUTUL NATIONAL DE CERCETARE DEZVOLTARE PENTRU TEHNOLOGII IZOTOPICE SI MOLECULARE I N C D T I M (RO)

Project website: http://ssll.inflpr.ro/ufouv/index.html

Abstract:

Nonlinear optics has revolutionized laser science by making it possible to efficiently convert laser light from one wavelength to another. Using the extreme nonlinear- optical process of high harmonic generation (HHG), light from an ultra-fast laser can be coherently up-shifted, resulting in a useful, tabletop, coherent and polarized short wavelength source. Such sources complement or replace expensive synchrotron facilities in specific applications.

The unique properties of UV HHG have already proven useful for studying ultra-fast molecular, plasma and materials dynamics, for characterizing nanoscale heat flow, for following element-specific dynamics in magnetic materials, and for high-resolution coherent imaging. HHG are ideal also for capturing the motion of electrons in atoms, molecules, and materials on their fundamental time (~fs) and length (~nm) scales.

Our project aims to develop at the TEWALAS laser system in INFLPR (15 TW, 10 Hz, 800 nm, 30 fs pulse duration), a HHG source technology as in [1] and also aims to build a facility to offer access to high flux radiation over the entire UV range. The major advantage is the ten fold increased UV production efficiency via quasi-phase matching control.

The expected impact of the development relates to a revolution in the efficiency of HHG sources, comparable with the one introduced by the periodically poled nonlinear crystals in laser physics. The optimized HHG sources will be patented and offered as high end products to the global ultra-fast laser market. The sources will also be the key elements at the core of a facility offering services related to the entire UV range, extending the capabilities of the TEWALAS laser facility. The commissioning of the UV user facility will be provided through a first experiment related to multi-coincidence photo-electron and photo-ion studies in diluted systems [2].

[1] Tosa V,et al., New J. of Phys. 10, 025016 (2008)

[2] C.M. Teodorescu, al., J. Chem. Phys. 109, 9280 (1998)

project title Call name: P 1 - SP 1.1 - Proiecte de mobilitate pentru cercetatori
PN-III-P1-1.1-MC-2018-0430 2018 -

Role in this project: Project coordinator

Coordinating institution: INSTITUTUL NATIONAL DE CERCETARE DEZVOLTARE PENTRU TEHNOLOGII IZOTOPICE SI MOLECULARE I N C D T I M

Project partners: INSTITUTUL NATIONAL DE CERCETARE DEZVOLTARE PENTRU TEHNOLOGII IZOTOPICE SI MOLECULARE I N C D T I M (RO)

Affiliation: INSTITUTUL NATIONAL DE CERCETARE DEZVOLTARE PENTRU TEHNOLOGII IZOTOPICE SI MOLECULARE I N C D T I M (RO)

Project website:

Abstract:

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List of research grants as project coordinator or partner team leader
Significant R&D projects for enterprises, as project manager
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