UMD_CMNS_Physics_S1_CMYK

Ki-Yong Kim Awarded the 2014 Richard A. Ferrell Distinguished Faculty Fellowship

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Category: Department News
Published: Tuesday, September 02 2014 01:00

Ki-Yong Kim has received the 2014 Richard A. Ferrell Distinguished Faculty Fellowship, which recognizes outstanding personal effort and expertise in physics as well as dedicated service to the UMD Department of Physics. The Fellowship, established in 2001, honors Dr. Richard A. Ferrell, a deeply-respected physicist who joined the University in 1953, served 40 years, and remained active in the department even after his retirement. Dr. Ferrell died in 2005 at his nearby University Park home.

Kim is an Associate Professor studying optical science, including intense, ultrafast laser interaction with atoms, molecules, solids, and plasmas.

 

Sprangle Wins the 2014 Advanced Accelerator Concepts Prize

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Category: Department News
Published: Friday, August 29 2014 15:06

Professor Phillip Sprangle has won the 2014 Advanced Accelerator Concepts Prize (AAC). This prize is awarded every 2 years at the AAC workshop, which is the premiere (invitation-only) meeting in the world for new ideas in accelerator physics and applications. The AAC Prize consists of a cash award, plaque, certificate, and much recognition as the competition is fierce.

https://aac2014.stanford.edu/aac-prize

Phil Sprangle

Undergraduates Honored for their Thesis Work

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Category: Department News
Published: Friday, August 29 2014 15:05

Ike Uchenna Chukwu and Burkley Patterson were recently both named recipients of the 2014 IPST Monroe Martin Prize for Undergraduate Research in Physics.

Burkley's work was titled "Construction and Experiments with a Cavity QED system." He will be continuing his work, now as a graduate student, in Luis Orozco's Cavity QED experiment, which is supported by NSF.

Ike worked on a "Two-Dimensional Magneto-Optical Trap with Rubidium Atoms." His research was part of the "Atoms on Squids" experiment, which is supported by the NSF PFC@JQI.

http://jqi.umd.edu/news/two-jqi-undergraduates-honored-their-thesis-work

Sprinkling Spin Physics onto a Superconductor

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Category: Research News
Published: Wednesday, August 27 2014 01:00

Antiferromagnetic spin-spin interactions are mediated and enhanced by electrons in a superconductor. Graphic credit, S. Kelley/E.Edwards

Jay Sau, in collaboration with physicists from Harvard and Yale, has been studying the effects of embedding magnetic spins onto the surface of a superconductor. They recently report in paper that was chosen as an "Editor's Suggestion" in Physical Review Letters, that the spins can interact differently than previously thought. This hybrid platform could be useful for quantum simulations of complex spin systems, having the special feature that the interactions may be controllable, something quite unusual for most condensed matter systems.

The textbook quantum system known as a spin can be realized in different physical platforms. Due to advances in fabrication and imaging, magnetic impurities embedded onto a substrate have emerged as an exciting prospect for studying spin physics. Quantum ‘spin’ is related to a particle’s intrinsic angular momentum. What’s neat is that while the concept is fairly abstract, numerous effects in nature, such as magnetism, map onto mathematical spin models.

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