PRB Highlights Work of Das Sarma and Hwang

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Published: Thursday, November 12 2020 05:33

To mark the 50^th anniversary of Physical Review B, editors selected “milestone” papers that have made lasting contributions to condensed matter physics, including one co-written by Distinguished University Professor Sankar Das Sarma.

Das Sarma wrote the selected paper, Dielectric function, screening, and plasmons in two-dimensional graphene, with Euyheon Hwang. Hwang earned his doctorate in 1996 under Das Sarma, and after appointments as a UMD research associate and assistant research scientist, accepted a faculty post at Sungkyunkwan University (SKKU) in South Korea.  He is one of about 100 of Das Sarma’s students and postdocs who have gone on to faculty appointEuyheon Hwang (seated, yellow shirt) and Sankar Das Sarma (red shirt) with CMTC colleagues in 2003.ments.

Hwang and Das Sarma have written about 120 articles together, including 88 papers in PRB from 1994 to 2019.

The milestone paper was published in 2007 and has 1,744 citations. In it, the authors developed a many body theory for the dynamical dielectric function of doped graphene at an arbitrary wave vector and frequency.   The dielectric function directly determines many physical properties, including electrical and optical properties.  This ‘milestone’ publication by Hwang and Das Sarma has been instrumental not only in the development of the fundamental physics of graphene, but has also ushered in the technological field of ‘graphene plasmonics’ which is being widely pursued worldwide for practical engineering use in optics and photonics.

Das Sarma, the Richard E. Prange Chair in Physics, is a Distinguished University Professor, a Fellow of the Joint Quantum Institute, and the director of the Condensed Matter Theory Center. He is internationally known for his work on topological quantum computation, Majorana physics, spin quantum computation, many body phenomena, quantum localization and nonequlibrium statistical mechanics, and has recently entered into the study of twisted bilayer graphene and higher-order topological systems. Google Scholar counts 90,227 citations and calculates an h-index of 124.

Nick Butch Honored by NIST

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Published: Friday, October 30 2020 01:38

Adjunct Associate Professor Nicholas Butch will receive the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s 2020 Samuel Wesley Stratton Award "for pioneering research into the exotic physics and extremely high-field re-entrant superconductivity in uranium ditelluride." The Stratton Award, named after the first director of the National Bureau of Standards, as NIST was then known, recognizes an unusually significant research contribution to science or engineering that merits the acclaim of the scientific world and supports NIST’s mission objectives.Nick Butch

Butch, a physicist at NIST’s Center for Neutron Research, is a member of the Quantum Materials Center (QMC). His first UMD appointment was as a Rolfe Glover Postdoctoral Fellow in 2008.

Among Butch’s research pursuits are quantum materials and superconductivity. In 2019, he and collaborators discovered superconductivity in the material uranium ditelluride (UTe₂) and then described a remarkable quirk: high magnetic fields seem to stabilize, not destroy, its superconducting state. This resilience could make UTe₂ a promising material for use in quantum computers.

Earlier in 2020, Butch and collaborators also announced that experiments with UTe₂ revealed that it might contain the long-sought Majorana fermion.

Butch earned his Ph.D. in 2008 at the University of California, San Diego. In 2017, he received a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), the highest honor bestowed by the United States government on science and engineering professionals in the early stages of their research careers.

PRA Highlights Work of Ian Spielman

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Published: Wednesday, October 21 2020 05:33

Monroe Elected OSA Fellow

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Published: Friday, October 16 2020 15:06

Christopher Monroe has been elected as a Fellow of The Optical Society (OSA)(link is external). He is one of 118 OSA members to be selected this year.

Monroe is also a Distinguished University Professor, the Bice Zorn Professor of Physics, and a fellow of the Joint Quantum Institute and the Joint Center for Quantum Information and Computer Science. He leads an experimental research group that masterfully manipulates the delicate interactions of light and ions. Their experiments span everything from simulating wormholes to pushing the frontiers of quantum computing.

Beverly Berger Receives APS Isaacson Award

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Published: Monday, October 12 2020 06:00

Beverly K. Berger (Ph.D., ‘72) has been selected to receive the 2021 American Physical Society (APS) Richard A. Isaacson Award in Gravitational-Wave Science, which recognizes outstanding contributions in gravitational-wave physics, gravitational-wave astrophysics, and the technologies that enable this science. Berger was cited for “supporting and expanding the community of scientists engaged in gravitational-wave research, and for fostering an international network of researchers devoted to theory and experimentation."

The award, which honors alumnus Richard Isaacson (Ph.D., ‘67), was established with funds donated by Nobel laureates Kip S. Thorne and Rainer Weiss to commemorate Isaacson’s impact on the study of gravitational waves. Isaacson’s research contributed to the theory of gravitational wave generation and propagation, and he later oversaw the development of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) during his career as Program Director of Gravitational Physics at the National Science Foundation (NSF).

Berger did her thesis work on cosmological graviton creation under Professor Emeritus Charles Misner. Her career included 24 years in the Physics Department at Oakland University (MI), where she served a term as department chair, and 10 years as Program Director for Gravitational Physics at the NSF. She is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and of the APS.

Within the APS, Berger worked to establish the Topical Group on Gravitation, which eventually became the Division of Gravitational Physics (DGRAV). She has twice served as DGRAV chair, and also led the APS Committee on the Status of Women in Physics in 2000.

She joined the LIGO Scientific Collaboration (LSC) in 2012 and is now part of the Stanford University LIGO Group.

The CMNS story, The Chirps Heard Round the World, describes the University of Maryland’s contributions to gravitational wave science. The short documentary film Mirrors That Hang on Glass Threads illuminates the scale and complexity of the LIGO detector, while LIGO Detection tells the story of the September 2015 event in the words of many LIGO scientists.

Other University of Maryland APS awardees in this cycle are Nick Poniatowski, who received the LeRoy Apker Award, and Steve Fetter, Dean of the Graduate School and Professor of Public Policy, who received the Leo Szilard Award.