My group's research focuses on the quantum behaviour of electrons in materials, principally semiconductors, and we use a variety of optical spectroscopic techniques to probe this behaviour. In our laboratories at Bath, we use Raman microscopy, magneto-Raman scattering, and photoluminescence in order to investigate quantum-confined electronic states in semiconductor heterostructures, nanoparticles, and two-dimensional layered materials. In particular, we have recently pioneered the study of the highly unusual rhenium-based 2D semiconductors. Samples are supplied for all our studies by academic and industrial groups world-wide and the phenomena investigated include the introduction of magnetic phenomena into semiconductors, the growth and doping of epilayers and the behaviour of carriers confined in low-dimensional structures and quantum dot systems. We also use angle-resolved photoemission (nano-ARPES) to probe the electronic states of nanoscale materials; these experiments are based at synchrotrons (SOLEIL in Paris and DIAMOND in the UK). All of this work is supported by state-of-the-art computational modelling based on density functional theory and carried out on the Bath supercomputer in collaboration with theorists at Bath and elsewhere.