Events Archive

Sep
10
2012
Spin Electronics: Magnetic Moments and Amorphous Semiconductors
  Spin electronics in its broadest definition is the study of systems where both the charge and the spin of the electron play a role.  The term was originally intended as a new technological concept, where traditionally the electron’s charge is important because transistors rely on currents and voltages, while the electron’s spin is important only in magnetic materials used for memory; spin electronics represents a new hybrid system.  Examples range from technological developments such as MRAM (magnetic random access memory) that are based on magnetic tunnel junctions, to some forms...
Sep
06
2012
Gauge Fields with Cold Atoms
Here I present our experimental work synthesizing static gauge fields for ultracold neutral atoms (bosonic and fermionic alkali atoms).  I will discuss this gauge field in the language of spin-orbit coupling where it consists of an equal sum of Rashba and Dresselhaus couplings. In experiment, we couple two internal states of our alkali atoms with a pair of ``Raman'' lasers and load our degenerate quantum...
Aug
30
2012
Dark Matter: and how we would not be alive without it
Most of the mass in the Universe is of some unknown form of matter. While we have some guesses what it might be we are not sure. In this talk for a non-specialist audience, Professor Abel will explain how observations using telescopes convinced the scientists that Dark Matter must exist. He will also show how without it we would not even be here. Using videos produced from his supercomputer calculations we can see how stars and galaxies are formed in virtual universes that have a striking resemblance to our own. Without dark matter none of this would work. The talk...
Aug
30
2012
Slow Light in Cold Rydberg Gases
Aug
27
2012
US Fusion Research
This review of the US fusion research program has two parts.  The first part (after a brief primer on fusion) surveys the plasma and fusion research issues that dominate the present US program.  The second part discusses in more detail two specific topics---the fusion-fission hybrid and the possibility of thermal equilibrium confinement---in more detail. The review assumes very little prior knowledge of plasma physics or fusion research.  ...
Aug
20
2012
School of Physics Annual Gathering
School Chair's Annual Address to the School. Reception immediately following in the East courtyard of Howey (between main building and lecture rooms on first floor).
Aug
17
2012
Magnetic nanostructures for on-chip manipulation of biological entities and biosensing
In this paper we present recent results obtained in the Nanobiotechnology and Spintronics group of  the LNEES research center of Politecnico di Milano, partially in cooperation with the nanoGUNE center in Spain, in the field of lab-on-chip devices based on magnetic nanostructures. Manipulation of biological entities:
Jul
19
2012
Computer simulations of frustration in soft matter systems; from nematic shells to bolaamphiphiles
I will discuss some recent computer simulations of three different systems; nematic shells, sticky colloidal particles on surfaces and the bulk phases of liquid crystalline bolaamphiphiles. For nematic shells, a layer of liquid crystal is used to coat a microscopic particle. In this geometry, defects necessarily occur – the system is frustrated so that the director profile and local orientational ordering is not constant everywhere. We examine the interactions between the defects for a number of different types and shapes of particles and other cavities. I will also discuss sticky colloids on a...
Jul
09
2012
Defibrillation mechanisms on a one-dimensional ring of cardiac tissue
EVO link:  http://evo.caltech.edu/evoNext/koala.jnlp?meeting=MtM8Ma2t2DD8Du9s92Ds9t Defibrillation is a medical treatment used to terminate ventricular fibrillation or pulseless ventricular tachycardia. An electrical device via a pair of...
Jul
05
2012
The Shadow of a Single Atom

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