This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).
This Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award supports a project to investigate novel quantum physics, inspired by high energy nuclear and particle physics, in graphene (a nanomaterial). Graphene is the building block of many carbon materials such as graphite and carbon nanotubes. Electrons in graphene can mimic relativistic particles (so called ?chiral Dirac fermions?) studied in high energy physics and described by quantum electrodynamics (QED) or quantum chromodynamics (QCD). This project will investigate the behavior of such chiral Dirac electrons in graphene nanostructures under various physical conditions. One focus will be a study of how these electrons may interact with impurities and with each other to generate novel quantum states of matter. This research has the potential to uncover new condensed matter physics and new methods of manipulating electrons in graphene, a material with exceptional properties that may allow the continued scaling of nanoelectronics to support future computing technology. Such studies may also provide cross-disciplinary insights to some fundamental phenomena that are difficult to observe in accelerator-based high energy physics experiments. Graduate and undergraduate students will participate in this cutting edge research in an exciting multi-disciplinary environment learning forefront physics, material sciences and nanotechnology. Strategic collaborations will be formed with national laboratories, to attack interdisciplinary problems and to enrich the educational experiences of the students involved. The educational component also features specially designed outreach activities on nanoscience directed toward exposing high school science teachers thereby impacting a broad and diverse base of high school students.
This CAREER Award supports a project to study novel relativistic-like quantum phenomena in nanostructures based on the material of graphene. Intellectual connections with high energy nuclear and particle physics will be explored, based on the fact that electrons in graphene can behave as chiral Dirac fermions and may display analogous physics as those studied in quantum electrodynamics (QED) or quantum chromodynamics (QCD). One focus of the project is to study how such chiral Dirac electrons may interact with impurities and with each other to generate novel quantum states of matter. This research may uncover new physics of condensed matter systems of chiral Dirac electrons, and lead to new methods of manipulating electrons in graphene with potential applications in nanoelectronic devices. This cross-disciplinary research may also provide insights to some fundamental problems that are difficult to study directly in accelerator-based high energy physics experiments, such as electrical breakdown of QED vacuum and chiral symmetry breaking and mass generation in QCD. Graduate and undergraduate students will participate in this cutting edge research in an exciting multi-disciplinary environment learning forefront physics, material sciences and nanotechnology. Strategic collaborations are formed with national laboratories, to attack interdisciplinary problems and to enrich the educational experiences of the students involved. The educational component features specially designed outreach activities on nanoscience directed toward high school science teachers thereby impacting a broad and diverse base of high school students.
