You Zhou Receives 2022 NSF Career Award

Congratulations to You Zhou, Assistant Professor, Department of Materials Science& Engineering, University of Maryland, a recipient of the  National Science Foundation (NSF) Career Award.

You Zhou received his Ph.D. in Applied Physics from Harvard University and was a postdoctoral scholar at Harvard before joining the University of Maryland.

His proposal, entitled "CAREER: Crystalizing electrons in coupled atomically thin semiconductors,” aims to study how electrons in a semiconductor can self-arrange into a periodic pattern, a crystal, and how such a crystal melts as a result of both thermal and quantum effects. The project utilizes semiconductors that are only a few atoms thick, so-called two-dimensional materials, to realize electron crystals and explores methods to probe and control the crystallization of electrons. The controlled melting of electron crystals due to quantum effects could form a novel platform for realizing quantum electronic and optoelectronic devices.

To learn more about the Zhou research group, please follow this link.

Walter J. Carr Lecture

Honoring his first mentor Walter J. Carr: Through all his professional growth and success, James Carr (Ph.D. ’89, Physics) has always appreciated the impact his very first mentor—his father—had on his life. And, in 2007, he found a way to pay it forward.  Working with UMD, he established the W.J. Carr Lecture Series on Superconductivity and Advanced Materials in the Department of Physics to honor the man who introduced him to physics.  The next Carr lecture will be given by Dale J. Van Harlingen, the Donald Biggar Willett Professor of Physics at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.  Read article "Taking Satellite Technology—and Physics—to New Heights" about James Carr's career.

Jerusalem Post Article Highlights QMC

A "Magazine" journalist visiting several UMD facilities discusses quantum science being pursued by QMC, JQI and IonQ in an article entitled "Who will dominate the tech arms race?". See article here and PDF version here.

UTe2 Swims and Quacks Like the Right Kind of Topological Duck

Two QMC teams on the hunt for an unconventional kind of superconductor have produced the most compelling evidence to date that they’ve found one. In a pair of papers published in Science and Nature Communications, the teams of Steve Anlage and Johnpierre Paglione have shown that uranium ditelluride displays many of the hallmarks of a topological superconductor—a material that may unlock new ways to build quantum computers and other futuristic devices. See news story by Dina Genkina.