Fall 2006,  PHY 598 Graduate Seminar
Atomic, Molecular, Optical and Condensed Matter Physics

Organizational meeting: September 11, 2006

First regular meeting: September 25, 2006
Meeting Time and Place: Instructors:
M 2:20-3:30pm
S-141		 Laszlo Mihaly, Office B-145/S-259, Office hours: tba
Dominik Schneble, Office A-106, Office hours: Wednesdays 1-2pm


Speaker schedule:

 

September 25 October 9 October 16 October 23
Szczepan Kowalczyk - CM1 [no seminar] [no seminar] M Meijer
Dominik Geissler      
October 30 November 6 November 13 November 20
Htay Hlaing Melvin Irizzary Jonathan Kaufman [no seminar]
Daniel Greif Huan Dong Stephan Albert  
November 27 December 4 December 11
Manuel Proissl Benedikt Scharfenberger Joshua Schlieder  
Jue Wang Liusuo Wu Marco Springmann  



List of topics:
Signup sheet will be on Laszlo Mihaly’s office door in B-145.  First come – first served.  You can change your topic after signing up but make sure to erase your name completely, so that somebody else can take the topic if they want it.
Condensed Matter Physics (CM)
  1. Carbon Nanotubes as Molecular Quantum Wires.  Physics Today (A) 52 (5), 23 (1999); Frank et al., Science 280 , 1744 (1998); more general discussion of transport in quantum structures, Imry and Landauer, Rev. Mod. Phys. 71 S306 (1999).
  2. Photonic crystals.  Bandgap in photonic crystals: 1.35-1.95 m.  Physics Today (S&D) 52, (1) 17 (1999); fabrication as Si inverse opal, Blanco et al., Nature 405, 437 (2000);
  3. Soft matter.  Block Copolymers – Designer Soft Materials.  Physics Today Feb. ’99;  Lubricants: “Soft Matter in a Tight Spot” Physics Today July ’99; biopolymer gels Physics Today S&D July ’05.
  4. Nanoscale mechanical devices.  Physics Today, July ’05  (2 articles on quantum mechanics and thermodynamics).  Micromechanical applications.  Physics Today Oct. 01.  Microfluidics.  Physics Today June ‘01
  5. Molecular electronics.  Physics Today, May ’05; Physics Today May ‘03.  Note refuted work by Schoen: Physics Today May 2000, Oct. ‘01
  6. High Temperature Superconductivity – Finally applications?  Physics Today April 2005.  Studies making use of grain boundaries (Chaudhari) Physics Today Nov ’01; “Electrodynamics of high-T¬c¬ superconductors,” Basov and Timusk, Rev. Mod. Phys. 77, 721 (2005).
  7. Spin Hall Effect.  Physics Today Feb. ‘05 S&D.  Science 306 1910 (2004)
  8. 2003 Nobel prize in Superconductivity and Superfluidity to Abrikosov, Ginzburg and Leggett.  Physics Today Dec 03 S&D
  9. Semiconductor Heterostructures.  2000 Nobel Prize to Alferov and Kroemer would be a good start Physics Today S&D, Dec. 2000.  Quantum Cascade Lasers Physics Today May ‘02
  10. Quantum Hall Effect.  (brief review of work recent to 2000) V.J. Goldman, Physica B280, 372 (2000);  anyons, V.J. Goldman et al., Phys. Rev. B 71 153303 (2005).
  11. Zero resistance state of 2D electrons in microwave field. Physics Today April ’03; A. Durst and S. Girvin, Science 304 , 1752 (2004)
  12. Fullerene superconductivity.  Forro and Mihaly, Rep. Prog. Physics 64 649 (2001); Gunnarson Rev. Mod. Phys. 69 575 (1997).
  13. Supercooled liquid metals.  Levitated drop experiment.  Physics Today July 03 S&D
  14. Quantum Shot Noise.  Physics Today May 03
  15. Quantum Dots.   Rev. Mod. Phys. 72, 895 (2000).
  16. Q-bits in superconductors.  Physics Today S&D June 02; Physics World Dec. ’04.
  17. Spintronics.  Layered magnetic materials – Physics Today May ’01; Zutic et al., Rev. Mod. Phys. 76 323 (2004); Physics World Aug. ’01.
  18. X-ray diffraction microscopy.  J. Miao et al., Nature 400, 342 (1999);  Physics Today April (2001);  I.K. Robinson et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 87 195505 (2001); Physics Today S&D April ’01;  “A phase odyssey,”  K.A. Nugent et al., Physics Today Aug ’01.
  19. X-ray imaging by phase – soft tissue.  Physics Today July 2000.
  20. Pattern formation via diffusion-limited aggregation.   Physics Today Nov. ‘00
  21. Composite Fermions.  Jain.  Physics Today April 2000.
  22. Pyroelectricity.  Physics Today Aug. ’05.
  23. Sonoluminescence.  Physics Today May ’05.
  24. Correlated electron physics in transition metal oxides (manganates etc.)  Physics Today  Jan ’03; Physics Today July ’03.
Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics (AMO) 

  1. Antihydrogen.  Physics Today S&D Jan ’03; Amoretti et al., Nature 419, 456 (2002); Physics Today  S&D Jan ’03; Gabrielse et al., Physics Lett. A 129 38 (1988); Physics Rep. 241, 65 (1994); Physics World March ’05

  2. Bose-Einstein condensation.   Nature, Vol 416 2002 (reviews); Physics World  June '05

  3. Fermionic quantum gases. Physics Today, S&D Oct. ’99 (Fermi degeneracy), Physics Today S&D Oct. 03 (molecule formation); S&D March 04 (pairing); S&D  July ’05 (vortices and superfluidity), Physics World June '05

  4. Quantum gases in optical lattices.  Rev. Mod. Phys 78, 179, 2006; Physics World April '04, Physics Today S&D March ‘02

  5. Femtosecond optical comb.   Physics Today June  ’00.  S.A. Diddams et al. Science 306 1318 (2004); prospects  for precision of 1 in 10^18.  Physics Today. March ’01 (., ., Wineland),  Physics Today S&D Dec 05,

  6. Quantum nondemolition.  Single Microwave Photons can be Measured Nondestructively.  (Atoms passing thru microwave cavity can sense if it contains 0 or 1 photon.)  Physics Today S&D  Oct. ‘99

  7. Quantum entanglement.  Physics Today Apr. ’03;  superconducting qbit and microwave photon, S&D Nov.  04; Atom-photon, Physics World May '04 ; trapped ions, Physics World Dec '05, Nature 438, 643, 2005

  8. Quantum computation and quantum information.  Physics Today March ’04; Quantum error correction in trapped ions.  Physics Today S&D Feb ’05, Physics Today, Jan '00; Physics Today Nov. 2000, Science 306, 633, 2004, Nature 429, 734, 2004

  9. Matter-wave interferometry with bucky-ball molecules.   Physics Today S&D May ’04, Nature 427, 711 (2004), Phys. Rev. Lett. 88, 100404 (2002), Nature 401, 651, 1999

  10. Ultrashort optical pulses in XUV.  Physics Today S&D Apr. ’03; Physics Today March ’05;  Field measurement of attosec pulses.  Physics Today S&D Oct. 04; laser pulses control x-ray switch Physics Today Feb. ’02.

  11. Electric Dipole Moment of neutrons, atoms, as test of P, CT symmetries.  Physics Today June ‘03

  12. Coherent control of quantum states.  Physics Today Aug. 03

  13. Lasing from single trapped atom.  Physics Today S&D Jan ‘04

  14. Orbital Angular Momentum of light.  Physics Today May ’04.  Allen et al., Phys. Rev. A 45, 8185 (1992); 

  15. Chaos-assisted tunneling.  Steck et al., Science 293 274 (2001); Physics Today S&D Aug. ’01; Hofferbert et al., Phys. Rev. E 71, 046201 (2005).

  16. Dynamical Localization.  M.G. Raizen, Advances in Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics vol. 41 (Academic Press, 1999); L. Sirko et al., Phys. Lett. A 266, 331 (2000).

  17. Time variation of fundamental contstants? Physics Today Oct. ‘04

  18. Left-handed materials, negative refraction.  Physics Today June ’04.

  19. Free electron lasers.  Physics Today Jan ’02.

  20. Atomic magnetometer with femtoTesla sensitivity; Physics Today S&D July ’03.

  21. Subwavelength focusing of time-reversed sound; Physics Today S&D Dec. ’02.

  22. Cavity QED / nonclassical light.  G.T. Foster et al., Phys. Rev. A 66, 033807 (2002); “QM with single atoms and photons,” Physics World Dec. (2000).

  23. Rydberg Constant.  Physics Today July 2000; Niering et al. Phys. Rev. Lett. 84, 5496 (2000).

  24. Rydberg Atoms.  Raimond et al., Rev. Mod. Phys. 73, 565 (2001); T.F. Gallagher, Rydberg Atoms, (Cambridge  University Press, 1994); Physics World Feb. ’03.

  25. Ultraslow light.  Physics Today S&D, June 1999, pg. 17;  Harris and Hau, Phys.   Rev. Lett. 82, 4611 (1999); Kash et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 82, 5229 (1999);  in solid at room temp, Bigelow et al., Science 301 200 (2003), storage of light pulses, Physics Today S&D March '01
Resources:

Notes:

The purpose of this course is to give starting graduate students experience with the vital skill of giving professional talks. One very important aspect of this is to choose the level of your talk, based upon your own level of knowledge and the level expected of your audience. As first year graduate students, we expect that you are not at a level of preparation that you would have giving a talk at a professional conference.  You will be graded on content and presentation, but the grade on content is more on consistency and "absence of holes" than on the level per se (high school – college – graduate student – faculty – world expert).

Your talk should be planned to take a total of 35 minutes.  Make sure to rehearse it so that you know your timing is right.  It is a cardinal sin of giving a talk to run over time.

You may either use Power Point, if you have access to an appropriate computer, or transparencies.

An abstract of the talk, according to the guidelines of the American Physical Society for invited talks, should be presented to the instructors at the time of the class in which you speak.

There will be two talks per class.  The times will be assigned randomly by the instructors before the end of the first week of the semester, and posted on this web site.  If you want to trade with another student, and can negotiate that before September 25, that is OK, but you must advise the instructors by September 25.

Final Grade Components:

Talk (contents and form) and abstract: 85%
Attendance and activity (asking the speakers good questions, participating in discussions): 15%.