Electrons, excitons and plasmons in two-dimensional materials: graphene, phosphorene, flat-band lattices and moiré heterostructures.
Adjunct Professor at the Department of Physics of the Federal University of Ceará, CNPq Research Productivity Fellow, and currently Director of the Internal Control, Ombudsman and Communication Office (ASCOI) at the Ceará State Research Foundation (FUNCAP).
I am a theoretical condensed matter physicist working on the electronic, transport, optical and magnetic properties of two-dimensional materials and semiconductor nanostructures. I hold a bachelor's (2009), a master's (2011) and a joint PhD in Physics (2014) from the Federal University of Ceará (UFC) and the University of Antwerp, where I spent one year as a joint-PhD student with Prof. François M. Peeters. After postdoctoral positions at UFC (PDJ/CNPq and PNPD/CAPES, 2014–2018) and a joint Research Scholar position at the University of Minnesota (Prof. Tony Low) and Hunan University (Prof. Chujun Zhao) in 2018–2019, I joined the Department of Physics of UFC as Adjunct Professor in February 2019, where I am a member of the Condensed Matter Theory Group (GTMC) and a CNPq Research Productivity Fellow (PQ-2).
My research combines tight-binding and continuum models to describe quantum confinement, quantum transport, plasmonics and excitonic physics in graphene and its multilayers, phosphorene, transition-metal dichalcogenides, flat-band lattices (Lieb, kagome and α-T3) and twisted (moiré) heterostructures. Many of these works are developed with students of the Graduate Program in Physics at UFC and with collaborators in Brazil (ITA, UFMT, UnB, IFPI, UESPI, Mackenzie), Belgium (University of Antwerp), the United States (University of Minnesota, UC Santa Cruz), China (Hunan University) and the United Kingdom (University of Manchester).
Since February 2025 I have been seconded from UFC to the Ceará State Research Foundation (FUNCAP), first as Manager of the Office for Analysis and Evaluation of Studies (GERAE), then as Special Advisor to the Presidency, and since May 2026 as Director of the Internal Control, Ombudsman and Social Communication Office (ASCOI), also serving as the Foundation's Ombudsman.
Academic and management positions, newest first. Since February 2025 I have been seconded from UFC to the Ceará State Research Foundation (FUNCAP), where I have held three successive leadership positions.
Management and advisory position (symbol DNS-2), appointed on 20 May 2026 (DOE-CE of 10 June 2026). Also designated FUNCAP's Ombudsman on 19 June 2026 (Portaria 0031/2026).
Management and advisory position (symbol DNS-2), from 1 October 2025 to 20 May 2026.
Management position (symbol DNS-3), from 3 February 2025 (DOE-CE of 5 February 2025), on secondment from UFC at the request of the Governor of Ceará (Ofício GG 216/2024).
Faculty member of the Department of Physics and of the Graduate Program in Physics (CAPES grade 7); researcher at the Condensed Matter Theory Group (GTMC). CNPq Research Productivity Fellow (PQ-2) since 2019. Approved in the public competition Edital 102/2018.
Bilateral postdoctoral agreement between Prof. Tony Low's group (Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, UMN) and Prof. Chujun Zhao's group (School of Physics & Electronics, HNU, Changsha): one third of the time on UMN projects and two thirds on optoelectronics projects with HNU.
Research stays as visiting researcher at the University of Antwerp (two visits in 2015, ≈5 months, with F. M. Peeters and M. Zarenia) and at the University of Minnesota (2016 and 2017, with Tony Low); scientific visit and invited lecture at Hunan University (July 2018).
Undergraduate physics courses for Chemistry students, including theoretical classes.
One-year stay under the supervision of Prof. François M. Peeters, leading to the joint PhD degree UFC–University of Antwerp.
Referee for Physical Review B, Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter, New Journal of Physics, European Physical Journal Plus, Superlattices and Microstructures, Journal of Computational Electronics, Solid State Communications.
I model electronic, transport, optical and magnetic properties of nanostructured and two-dimensional systems, combining tight-binding and continuum (Dirac, k·p) descriptions with wave-packet dynamics, transfer-matrix and Landauer–Büttiker transport, and many-body approaches for excitons and trions.
Energy levels, magnetic-field effects, vortices and persistent currents in quantum dots and rings of monolayer, bilayer and ABC-stacked trilayer graphene; edge, strain and substrate effects in nanoribbons; carbon nanotubes. Tight-binding results are confronted with simplified Dirac models to establish which boundary conditions and interfaces control the spectra.
See publications (33) →From multilayer tight-binding models to continuum descriptions of black phosphorus: boundary conditions for nanoribbons, Coulomb blockade and exciton fine structure in quantum dots, wave-packet dynamics, Y-junctions, Andreev reflection, impurity collapse and thermoelectric transport in anisotropic media.
See publications (12) →Electronic structure, strain engineering, symmetry analysis, topological phase transitions, tunneling, chiral states and thermodynamic properties of the Lieb–kagome interpolation and of α-T3 lattices, including nanoribbons, multilayers and superlattices.
See publications (11) →Twisted bilayer graphene quantum dots and rings, magnetism in twisted flakes, and the zitterbewegung and elliptical-orbit dynamics of moiré excitons in twisted transition-metal-dichalcogenide heterobilayers. Excitons and trions in 2D semiconductors (Stark shift, dark states, Faddeev-equation trions, double-monolayer heterostructures).
See publications (14) →Valley filters based on electrostatic potentials, strain-induced snake states and substrate-induced mass; electron collimation and steering, p–n junctions and Veselago lensing, current switching in Y-junctions, electron diffraction in anisotropic media. Methods: split-operator wave-packet dynamics, transfer matrix and Landauer–Büttiker (Kwant) transport.
See publications (20) →Channel plasmons in graphene, nonlocal electrodynamics of anisotropic magnetoplasmons, double-resonant second-harmonic generation through band nesting, terahertz photocurrents; and, in collaboration with UFMT, phase transitions of driven Ising, Heisenberg and Blume–Capel systems with competing dynamics.
See publications (4) →Peer-reviewed articles and preprints; a paper that spans two themes is counted in both.
| Theme | Publications |
|---|---|
| Graphene & carbon nanostructures | 33 |
| 2D semiconductors & heterostructures | 22 |
| Quantum transport & valleytronics | 20 |
| Moiré, twistronics & excitons | 14 |
| Phosphorene & anisotropic 2D materials | 12 |
| Flat-band lattices: Lieb, kagome, α-T3 | 11 |
| Statistical physics & magnetism | 8 |
| Methods & physics education | 5 |
| Plasmonics & optics | 4 |
| Interdisciplinary | 2 |
Journal articles and preprints, newest first. Filter by year, theme or type, open the DOI, or copy a BibTeX entry.
Research projects and grants in which I participate as coordinator or team member.
From DFT to Wannier tight-binding Hamiltonians, wave-packet transport (split-operator) and k·p continuum models for excitons, trions and nonlinear optics in 2D semiconductors; six co-supervised PhD students and four master students across the institutions.
Excitonic properties of transition-metal-dichalcogenide heterostructures and alloys for third-generation photovoltaics, combining DFT, tight-binding, GW/BSE and effective Hamiltonians with experimental fabrication and characterization.
Tight-binding band structures of the eleven 2D Archimedean lattices and their multilayers, including perpendicular electric and magnetic fields, spin–orbit coupling and different stacking alignments, searching for type-I and type-II Dirac fermions and flat bands.
Theoretical studies of multilayer graphene and 2D semiconductor nanostructures using tight-binding, continuum, Landauer–Büttiker and split-operator techniques, proposing new devices and supporting the interpretation of experiments.
Theoretical and computational modelling of transport in nanostructured multilayer phosphorene, a highly anisotropic 2D semiconductor with a layer-tunable gap.
ITA–UFC cooperation on electronic and optical properties of 2D materials for photosensors, radar-absorbing materials, photovoltaics and space chemistry.
An extension project of the Departments of Physics and Chemistry and the UFC Analytical Center that promotes reading and scientific debate through systematic reading of popular-science books on materials, open to high-school and university students, teachers and the community.
Courses taught at UFC, video lectures, and the students I have supervised or co-supervised.
Names and titles as registered in the Lattes CV.
Member of 131 examination committees: 29 PhD theses, 36 master dissertations, 43 qualifying exams, 20 undergraduate monographs and 3 other juries.
41 participations in scientific meetings (including 8 invited talks) and member of the organizing committee of 6 events, among them the Brazilian Workshop on Semiconductor Physics (2019, 2022, 2024) and the Brazilian Physical Society Autumn Meetings (2019, 2024).
Lecture series and seminars from my YouTube channel, grouped by playlist, plus recorded talks hosted on other channels. 172 videos on the channel. Open the channel →
Solved problems from Halliday & Resnick (Fundamentals of Physics, vol. 1) and Moysés Nussenzveig, recorded for the Fundamental Physics for Engineering course at UFC.
Solved problems from Halliday & Resnick (Fundamentals of Physics, vol. 2): thermodynamics, oscillations and waves.
Solved problems from Halliday & Resnick (Fundamentals of Physics, vol. 3), chapters 23–24; videos not yet grouped in a playlist on the channel.
Exercise videos on dimensional analysis (problem list 01).
Graduate lectures on the transfer-matrix method for quantum transport (Topics in Theoretical Physics II, UFC).
Recorded talks hosted on other channels (IIP/UFRN, CIF-UnB, ICTP-SAIFR, UFMT).
For collaborations, seminars, student projects or scientific exchange, contact me by email or through the profiles below.
