Summer Camps Introduce High School Girls to Physics

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Category: Department News

Published: Friday, January 17 2020 05:56

Since its inception in 1988, over 1,500 students have participated in the University of Maryland’s Summer Girls physics program for rising 9th through 12th graders. Last summer alone, more than 50 young students came to campus for one or two weeks to explore concepts from classical and modern physics, conduct hands-on laboratory experiments, and learn about careers in physics. The students also met and spoke with physics professors and graduate students, listened to interesting lectures, and toured research laboratory tours. 

The program is mostly funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation through the Physics Frontier Center at the Joint Quantum Institute. Students paid only $25 to participate last year. Participants of the program, which is directed by Donna Hammer, have come not only from Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C., but also from Pennsylvania, New Jersey and all over the world. Graduates have gone on to become engineers, doctors, computer scientists and, of course, physicists. 

In Memoriam

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Category: Department News

Published: Friday, January 17 2020 05:56

It is with much sadness that the Department of Physics announces the passing of several members of our community.

Janet Das Sarma (1971-2019) managed the Condensed Matter Theory Center for the last decade. She received the department’s Staff Excellence Award in October. More

Leona Dunklee (1926-2019) was an account clerk in the Department of Physics who supported the electronic development group and was active in planning departmental events.

Hans R. Griem (1928-2019), a noted expert in high-temperature plasmas and spectroscopy, served on the UMD faculty from 1957 to 1994. He was a consultant with Los Alamos National Laboratory. More

Udayaditya “Yudi” Konwar (1997-2019), an international student from Assam, India, would have been a junior physics major this year.

Don Langenberg (1932-2019) was a physicist, the Chancellor of the University System of Maryland from 1990 to 2002, and in recent years an active voice for education at the National Academies. More

Susanne Misner (1933-2019) is survived by her husband, Professor Emeritus Charles Misner. The couple donated proceeds from the sale of correspondence with Stephen Hawking to establish the department’s Weber Endowment for Gravitational Physics.

Lawrence A. Schmid (1928-2019) was a longtime NASA physicist who contributed to the Apollo Lunar Landing. He was a generous donor to undergraduate education in UMD’s Department of Physics.  

Joseph Sucher (1930-2019) was a Distinguished Scholar-Teacher and the poet laureate of the department. He established the Joseph and Dorothy Sucher Graduate Prize in Relativistic Theoretical Physics. More

Peter Hawley Walpole (1947-2019) was a physicist who worked on the Cosmic Ray Energetics and Mass (CREAM) and Boron And Carbon Cosmic rays in the Upper Stratosphere (BACCUS) experiments. 

Gaurang Yodh (1928-2019) was a UMD Physics Professor from 1961 to 1988 before moving to the University of California, Irvine. More

Johnpierre Paglione Receives $1.55M from the Moore Foundation

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Category: Research News

Published: Friday, January 17 2020 05:56

Physics Professor Johnpierre Paglione has been awarded more than $1.5 million by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation to study the complex behavior of electrons in quantum materials.Johnpierre Paglione

“The Moore Foundation has played a pivotal role in supporting and promoting quantum materials research over the last five years, and I am extremely excited to continue to be part of this effort,” said Paglione, who also directs UMD’s Quantum Materials Center (formerly the Center for Nanophysics and Advanced Materials).

The new grant was awarded by the Moore Foundation’s Emergent Phenomena in Quantum Systems (EPiQS) initiative, a quantum materials research program that funds work on materials synthesis, experiments, and theory, with an interdisciplinary approach that includes physicists, chemists, and materials scientists. EPiQS focuses on exploratory research that develop deep questions about the organizing principles of complex quantum matter, and it also supports progress toward new applications, like quantum computing and precision measurement. 

Paglione’s award for materials synthesis was one of only 13 in the U.S. and renews an earlier grant he received from EPiQS, which has provided more than $120 million to researchers since 2013.

“Fundamental studies of quantum materials play a critical role in not only supporting current development of quantum technologies, but also the discovery of new phenomena that hold promise for future applications,” Paglione said.

In recognition of that critical role, UMD’s Center for Nanophysics and Advanced Materials was renamed to the Quantum Materials Center (QMC) in October. The change emphasized the evolving interests of the Center’s members, and it was announced at a one-day symposium in September organized by Paglione and several colleagues.

“Our center’s purpose will remain focused on the fundamental exploration and development of advanced materials and devices using multidisciplinary expertise drawn from the physics, chemistry, engineering and materials science departments,” Paglione said. “But we will place strong emphasis on the pursuit of optimized and novel quantum phenomena with potential to nucleate future computing, information and energy technologies.”

The symposium brought together many local scientists who study quantum materials, including researchers from the university’s Departments of Physics, Chemistry and Biochemistry, Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Materials Science and Engineering, in addition to researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the Laboratory for Physical Sciences. Amitabh Varshney, dean of UMD’s College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences, and Robert Briber, associate dean of UMD’s A. James Clark School of Engineering, attended and shared their perspectives on campus initiatives in quantum science, including the newly formed Quantum Technology Center.

That meeting was bookended by several exciting research results from Paglione and his colleagues in the QMC. In June, they reported capturing the best evidence yet of Klein tunneling, a quantum quirk that allows electrons to burrow through a barrier like it’s not even there. The result, which was featured on the cover of the journal Nature, arises from a duo of quantum effects at the junction of two materials. One is superconductivity, which keeps electrons paired off in highly correlated ways. The other has to do with the precise kind of superconductivity present—in this case, topological superconductivity that further constrains the way that electrons interact with the interface between the two materials. In a nutshell, electrons heading toward the junction aren’t allowed to reflect back, which leads to their perfect transmission.

In August, Paglione and his collaborators published a paper in the journal Science about a new, unconventional superconductor. That material—uranium ditelluride—may also exhibit some effects expected of a topological superconductor, including a demonstrated resilience to magnetic fields that typically destroy superconductivity. One of the paper’s co-authors, NIST scientist and Adjunct Associate Professor of Physics Nicholas Butch, called the material a potential “silicon of the quantum information age,” due to its stability and potential use as a storage medium for the basic units of information in quantum computers.

In a follow-up paper published in the journal Nature Physics in October, many of the same researchers teamed up with scientists from the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory to test the properties of uranium ditelluride under extreme magnetic fields. They observed a rare phenomenon called re-entrant superconductivity, furthering the case that uranium ditelluride is not only a profoundly exotic superconductor, but also a promising material for technological applications. Nicknamed “Lazarus superconductivity” after the biblical figure who rose from the dead, the phenomenon occurs when a superconducting state arises, breaks down, then re-emerges in a material due to a change in a specific parameter—in this case, the application of a very strong magnetic field.

“This is indeed a remarkable material and it’s keeping us very busy,” Paglione said. “Uranium ditelluride may very well become the ‘textbook’ spin-triplet superconductor that people have been seeking for dozens of years and, more importantly, may be the first manifestation of a true intrinsic topological superconductor with potential for all sorts of technologies to come!”

Written by Chris Cesare with contributions from Matthew Wright

Longtime Staff Member Lorraine DeSalvo Retires

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Category: Department News

Published: Friday, January 17 2020 05:56

After 41 years tending to the people and places of the Department of Physics, Director of Administrative Services Lorraine DeSalvo retired in December. In tribute, colleagues established the Lorraine DeSalvo Chair's Endowed Award for Outstanding Service to provide annual recognition to physics employees who demonstrate exemplary commitment to their work. 

DeSalvo graduated from the University of Maryland in 1972 and immediately accepted a job in the Department of Chemistry. 

“I have had the pleasure of knowing so many truly wonderful staff members on this campus during my years here,” she said. “Having this fund to recognize physics department colleagues is the finest farewell I could have asked for.” 

DeSalvo’s duties covered both facilities and human relations, meaning that she knew every inch of space and every employee. Her vast institutional memory and cross-campus contacts allowed her to untangle innumerable bureaucratic knots.  As Department Chair Steve Rolston noted, the most commonly uttered phrase in the department in recent decades may well have been, “Just ask Lorraine.” 

Modern, energy-intensive physics experiments long strained the aging infrastructure of the John S. Toll Physics Building and required constant vigilance and frequent, extensive renovations. When funding was approved for the new Physical Sciences Complex, DeSalvo’s workload expanded considerably. She worked with architects, builders, and capital improvement staff to plan the move, order furniture, and ensure that labs were built to the exacting specifications of dozens of extremely particular scientists. 

She fostered camaraderie with vibrant holiday parties and memorable fiestas, extending invitations to helpful colleagues across a swath of campus sectors. To the department’s many international students, scholars and visitors, she extended her welcome, wisdom and warmth. She owned a variety of small stuffed flamingos, which she dispatched to travelers with a request for a scenic photo. A slideshow of UMD physics folks hoisting pink birds across the globe ran continually in her office. 

She also displayed a keen regard for the department’s achievements. 

After the death of physicist Joe Weber in 2000, his lab fell into disuse. DeSalvo kept protective watch over the “Weber bars,” colossal aluminum cylinders built to record gravitational waves. Years later, in 2015, the LIGO experiment detected gravitational waves, generating worldwide acclaim and renewing interest in Weber’s quest. Last March, the Weber Garden was dedicated outside of the Physical Sciences Complex.  

“Without Lorraine’s protective instincts and her foresight that the Weber bars would prove significant, these excellent monuments to UMD innovation would have been lost forever to campus and the world,” Rolston said.

As a retiree, DeSalvo says she looks forward to finding the best crab cake restaurants around—and to keeping in touch with the department. 

She was serenaded at her retirement party by the following: 

Her global flamingos and holiday parties
And summer fiestas gave Physics some verve
And year in and year out, there surely could be no doubt
How heartfelt is her motto of “I live to serve.”

Contributions to the Lorraine DeSalvo Chair's Endowed Award for Outstanding Service can be made here.