2017 Carr Lecturer: Stuart Parkin

The W. J. Carr Lecture Series on Superconductivity and Advanced Materials was established by Dr. James L. Carr ‘ 89, and attracts some of the best researchers in this field each year. This year's distinguished Lecturer is Dr. Stuart Parkin, Director of the Max Planck Institute of Microstructure Physics and Professor at the Institute of Physics of the University of Halle-Wittenberg. Parkin is a pioneer in the science and application of spintronic materials, and has made discoveries into the behavior of thin-film magnetic structures that were critical in enabling recent increases in the data density and capacity of computer hard-disk drives. For these discoveries, he was awarded the 2014 Millennium Technology Prize.

Prof. Parkin will present both a department colloquium and technical seminar.

First Annual Winter School on Fundamentals of Quantum Materials

The Fundamentals of Quantum Materials Winter School and Workshop, held January 14-19, 2017 at the University of Maryland’s College Park campus, is a unique event in North America, dedicated specifically to the synthesis, characterization and electronic modeling of Quantum Materials. It is organized by CNAM Director Johnpierre Paglione; Prof. Efrain Rodriguez of UMD’s department of Chemistry; Dr. Nicholas Butch, NIST; and Prof. Gabriel Kotliar of Rutgers University.

The FQM Winter School is aimed at providing fundamental training to our current and future generations of Quantum Materials scientists in synthesis and characterization techniques. It will bring together senior and junior scientists to address topics at the forefront of current research into quantum materials, while also providing pedagogical background and practical training for junior scientists. With an interdisciplinary and diverse crowd including physicists, chemists, and materials scientists, participants will gain a basic functional knowledge of how to plan and carry out synthesis relevant to the study of quantum materials, and will have a unique opportunity to interact with some of the top researchers in the field while networking with fellow peers. The structure of the school will include mornings of pedagogical lectures by ten of the nation's top practicing quantum materials scientists, with afternoons devoted to practical demonstrations in laboratories in CNAM. The school will also include a poster session that will be attended by senior scientists. The school received ~40 applications and seated 25 students.

The FQM Workshop, held the preceding weekend in collaboration with the BNL Center for Computational Design of Functional Strongly Correlated Materials and Theoretical Spectroscopy, covers both experimental and theoretical research on quantum materials, focusing on synthesis, characterization and computational approaches to research of quantum materials such as superconductors, strongly correlated electron systems and topological materials.

The event is sponsored by the Moore Foundation, ICAM, NIST, the University of Maryland’s Office of Research and the College of Mathematics and Natural Sciences.

Nick Butch Honored with Presidential Early Career Award

President Obama has just named 102 scientists and researchers as recipients of the Presidential Early Career Awards 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 independent research careers. CNAM affiliate Nick Butch, a staff physicist at the NIST Center for Neutron Research and adjunct professor at UMD, is being honored for his significant contributions to understanding the interplay of magnetism with superconductivity and revealing observations about superconducting materials. Congratulations Nick!!!

Electrons, Holes, and Spin in Monolayer Four-Six-enes

A study by CNAM members Prof. Ian Appelbaum and Dr. Pengke Li has been featured as an Editor's Suggestion in PRB. Applying group theoretic methods to study the unusual electronic structure of atomically-thin two-dimensional "four-six-ene" semiconductors such as tin sulfide, germanium telluride, etc, this work provides a straightforward framework for understanding the consequences of inversion symmetry breaking due to inequivalent sublattice atomic identity. In particular, the quantum states at the edge of the fundamental bandgap -- relevant to all transport, optoelectronic, and spintronic properties -- are shown to directly inherit their character from nearby points of high symmetry in the reciprocal lattice, where the form of allowable energetic interactions is constrained. This work is published in Physical Review B; more information can be found on Prof. Appelbaum's web site.