| Teaching an Old Dog Some New Tricks |
| Abhay Narayan Pasupathy, Columbia University |
| Event Type: Physics Dept Colloquium |
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| Time: 4:00 PM - 5:30 PM |
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| Location: 726 Broadway, 940, CCPP Seminar |
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| Abstract: For several decades now, traditional solid state physics has been focused on understanding the quantum ground state properties of interesting new materials like superconductors or magnets. Experimentalists use simple techniques like measuring the resistance of a sample, and use this data to draw conclusions on the underlying physics of materials. In more recent times, dramatic advances in lasers have opened up new fields of quantum information science and dynamical control of solids. In this talk, I will discuss two meeting points between the old and the new ways of doing solid state physics based on new experiments in my laboratory. In the first, I will describe quantum sensing experiments that can detect critical behaviour near a magnetic phase transition in an atomically-thin sample. In the second, I will describe how near-field enhancement can be used to generate enormous electric fields that can dramatically tune the electronic properties of a two-dimensional semiconductor. |