Previous Events
To see the upcoming events and seminars, please check the Events page.
| Event Name | Date, Time and Host | Summary |
|---|---|---|
| Observation of the Layer Hall Effect in Topological Axion Antiferromagnet MnBi2Te4 |
While ferromagnets have been known and exploited for millennia, antiferromagnets were only discovered in the 1930s. The elusive nature indicates antiferromagnets’ unique properties: At large scale, due to the absence of global magnetization, antiferromagnets may… Show more Speaker: Prof. SuYang Xu, Department of Chemistry, Harvard University |
|
| Water Ice and Spin Ice: Ground States and Topological Defects |
Our planet is called Earth, but based on the surface composition, perhaps it should have been called Water. Despite the ubiquitous presence on our planet, water's solid form, ice does not readily enter the ground state upon cooling, owing to residual disorder of… Show more Speaker: Prof. John Cumings, University of Maryland College Park |
|
| TBD |
Abstract TBD
Speaker: Marco Govoni |
|
| Nanoscale confinement towards a one-dimensional superfluid |
In one spatial dimension, enhanced thermal and quantum fluctuations should preclude the existence of any long range ordered superfluid phase of matter. Instead, the quantum liquid should be described at low energies by an emergent hydrodynamic framework known… Show more Speaker: Adrian Del Maestro, University of Tennessee |
|
| Electron and ion dynamics in materials due to particle radiation and optical excitation |
Materials manipulation via ion or laser beams can achieve precisely tuned atomic geometries that are necessary, e.g. to engineer interactions between defects in quantum materials and for fabricating novel electronic devices with nanoscale dimensions. In addition,… Show more Speaker: Andre Schleife, UIUC |
|
| Loop extrusion, chromatin crosslinking, and the geometry, topology and mechanics of chromosomes and nuclei |
The chromosomes of eukaryotic cells are based on tremendously long DNA molecules that must be replicated and then physically separated to allow successful cell division. I will discuss what we have learned about chromosome structure from our group's biophysical… Show more Speaker: John F. Marko, Northwestern University |
|
| Exploring anyons and black holes-like dynamics in flatland |
The world and the Universe we live in are composed of fermions and bosons. The quantum statistics of these particles overwhelmingly governs what we see around us. But one could wonder, can other kinds of quantum particles exist? I will begin this… Show more Speaker: Smitha Vishveshwara, UIUC |
|
| Strongly-interacting systems: from fractional quantum Hall effect to field-theoretic dualities |
Quantum systems with strong interaction exist in many branches of physics and present a challenge for theory. We will discuss some recent methods to solve the problem, focusing on one particular example: the fractional quantum Hall fluid. Many phenomena… Show more Speaker: Prof. Dam Thanh Son, University of Chicago |
|
| Control of Magnetization in Topological Insulator/Magnetic Insulator Heterostructures |
Spintronics-based technology, which uses spins to represent and propagate information, holds promise to realize devices that surpass the current CMOS transistor technology in power, density and speed. For example, magnetic random-access memory (MRAM) based on… Show more Speaker: Prof. Peng Li, Auburn University |
|
| Journal Club |
This week the Condensed Matter Journal Club will feature rehearsals of student and faculty talks for the the March meeting of the APS.
Speaker: March Meeting Rehearsals |
|
| Hunting for topological phases amidst Hofstadter butterflies and disordered landscapes |
In this talk, I will discuss rich topological behavior in two related models – the Majorana wire and a Su-Schrieffer-Heeger ladder- in the presence of potential energy landscapes. An introduction of the two models and of techniques that directly provide information… Show more Speaker: Smitha Vishveshwara, UIUC |
|
| Climatic and Humanitarian Impacts of Nuclear War |
A nuclear war between any two nations, such as India and Pakistan, with each country using 50 Hiroshima-sized atom bombs as airbursts on urban areas, could inject 5 Tg of soot from the resulting fires into the stratosphere, so much smoke that the resulting climate… Show more Speaker: Dr. Alan Robock, Rutgers University |
|
| Fundamentals of Amorphous Oxide Semiconductors |
Amorphous oxide semiconductors (AOS)—ternary or quaternary oxides of post-transition metals—have attracted a lot of attention due to high carrier mobility which is an order of magnitude larger than that of amorphous silicon (a-Si:H). Unlike Si-based semiconductors,… Show more Speaker: Julia Medvedeva, University of Missouri S&T |
|
| Combined Magnetic Tweezers-TIRF microscopy for studying DNA-protein interactions |
Magnetic tweezers allow the user to apply force and torque to magnetic beads attached to single DNA molecules, and to observe the resulting changes in DNA extension. This technique, however, is limited to measuring a single degree of freedom: the distance between the… Show more Speaker: Maria Mills, MU Physics |
|
| Manifestations of band geometry in linear and nonlinear transport |
I will describe how the geometry of the band structure of metals manifests itself in their optical and transport properties. I particular, I will show that the natural optical activity of metals, equivalent to the so-called dynamic chiral magnetic effect, stems from… Show more Speaker: Dmytro Pesin, University of Virginia |