Physics Commons^™

Electronic, Optical, And Magnetic Properties Of Novel Two-Dimensional Materials, Xiaobo Lu

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The field of two-dimensional(2D) materials is experiencing rapid growth and attracting tremendous research interests within the condensed matter community due to its ultimate thickness dimension and unique physical properties. The consistently emerging novel 2D materials not only provide extraordinary intrinsic properties of their single layer and multi- layer structures but also exhibit fascinating responses to the tunable external conditions. The fertile contents and boundless possibilities of novel 2D materials make it one of the pivots of modern nanotechnology towards deepening the physics understanding and promising practical applications.

In the first part of the thesis, we reveal the distinct Stark effects …

Development Of A Diamond Defect Quantum Sensing Platform For Probing Novel Quantum Magnetic Phases, Jeffrey Ahlers

Senior Honors Papers / Undergraduate Theses

Nitrogen vacancy centers in diamond are highly effective quantum sensors due to their high spatial resolution and high magnetic field sensitivity. We present the construction of an optically detected magnetic resonance platform in order to facilitate the probing of magnetic phases in two-dimensional heterostructures. This includes the characterization of the required microwave voltage controlled oscillator and amplifier. In the presence of crystal strain, we measure ensemble nitrogen vacancy spin transitions with and without an applied magnetic field, and observe frequency shifts consistent with sample heating.

Computational Design Of Two-Dimensional Transition Metal Dichalcogenide Alloys And Their Applications, John Douglas Cavin

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The discovery of bronze as an alloy of copper and tin is arguably the earliest form of material design, dating back thousands of years. In contrast, two-dimensional materials are new to the 21st century. The research presented in this dissertation is at the intersection of alloying and two-dimensional materials. I specifically study a class of two-dimensional materials known as transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs). Because of the large number of transition metals, there are many combinations of TMDCs that can be alloyed, making experimental exploration of the phase space of possible alloys unwieldly. Instead, I have applied first-principles methods to study …

First-Principles Studies Of Anion Engineering In Functional Ceramics, Steven Timothy Hartman

McKelvey School of Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Ceramic materials display a wide variety of valuable properties, such as ferroelectricity, superconductivity, and magnetic ordering, due to the partially covalent bonds which connect the cations and anions. While many breakthroughs have been made by mixing multiple cations on a sublattice, the equivalent mixed-anion ceramics have not received nearly as much attention, despite the key role the anion plays in the materials’ properties. There is great potential for functional ceramics design using anion engineering, which aims to tune the materials properties by adding and removing different types of anions in existing classes of ceramic materials. In this dissertation, I present …

Measurement, Dissipation, And Quantum Control With Superconducting Circuits, Patrick Harrington

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The interaction between a superconducting circuit and its environment can cause decoherence. However, interactions with an environment are necessary for quantum state preparation and measurement. Through the dynamics of open quantum systems, the environment is a resource to control and readout superconducting circuit states. I present an experimental result demonstrating qubit state stabilization from engineered dissipation with a microwave photonic crystal. In addition, I discuss the statistical arrow of time in the dynamics of continuous quantum measurement. These results demonstrate an interplay between open quantum system dynamics and statistics, which highlights the role of both dissipation and measurement for quantum …

Studies Of Maximum Supercooling And Stirring In Levitated Liquid Metallic Alloys, Mark Edward Sellers

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Nucleation—or the formation of some cluster in a medium undergoing a phase transition—is usually the initial step in a phase transition. However, this process is still not fully understood, as outstanding questions related to the role of structure, local order, and diffusion remain unanswered. Systematic supercooling studies on metallic liquids performed using electrostatic and electromagnetic (ESL and EML, respectively) will be presented and discussed within the context of several nucleation theories, such as the Classical Nucleation Theory, Diffuse Interface Theory, and Coupled-Flux theory. To study the role of diffusion on nucleation, studies on the International Space Station using the on-board …

Thermophysical Properties And Phase Transformations In Metallic Liquids And Silicate Glasses, Daniel Christian Van Hoesen

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The first quantitative measurements of the electrical resistivity in binary metallic liquids, used to probe local order in the liquid, are reported in this dissertation. The electrical resistivity is very sensitive to short and medium range ordering because the electron mean free path is approximately the same length scale as the atomic spacing. Particular attention is given to the resistivity value at a crossover temperature that, based on molecular dynamics (MD) simulations, is the onset of cooperative motion in liquid alloys. Experimental evidence for the crossover is found in measurements of the shear viscosity, a dynamical property. An indication of …

Cyclotron Resonance In Graphene Heterostructurescyclotron Resonance In Graphene Heterostructures, Billy Jordan Russell

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

We present observations of cyclotron resonance in graphene Van der Waals heterostructure devices. Such devices provide dramatic improvements in sample quality and allow for ad- vanced electronic control, opening windows on previously inaccessible physics. The design and construction of a dedicated system for the measurement of electronic transport and infrared magnetospectroscopy in microscopic samples of atomically thin materials at cryogenic temperatures is presented. In high-mobility encapsulated monolayer graphene, electron- electron interaction effects are unambiguously observed to impact the interband cyclotron resonance as the Landau level filling factor is varied in a quantizing magnetic field. Additionally, a splitting of transitions involving …

Enhanced Magnetic Ordering In Sm Metal And Search For Superconductivity In Cs And Rb Under Extreme Pressure, Yuhang Deng

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

At ambient pressure Sm metal orders antiferromagnetically at 106 K and 14 K. The pressure-dependence of the magnetic ordering temperature To of Sm metal was determined through four-point electrical resistivity measurements in a diamond anvil cell to pressures as high as 150 GPa. A strong increase in To with pressure is observed above 85 GPa. In this pressure range Sm ions alloyed in dilute concentration with superconducting Y exhibit giant Kondo pair breaking. Taken together, these results suggest that for pressures above 85 GPa Sm is in a highly correlated electron state, like a Kondo lattice, with an unusually high …

Strongly Correlated Systems Under High Magnetic Field: A Mixed Landau Levels Description For Fractional Quantum Hall Effect, Sumanta Bandyopadhyay

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Strong correlation among electrons under high magnetic field gives rise to an entirely new arena of emergent physics, namely fractional quantum Hall effect. Such systems have entirely different elementary degrees of freedom and generally, demand non-perturbative approaches to develop a better understanding. In the literature, there are several analytical methodologies and numerical toolkits available to study such a system. Clustering of zeros, parent Hamiltonian, off-diagonal order parameter, parton construction, matrix product states are to be named among a few of those popular methodologies in the existing literature. Most of these methods work well in the lowest Landau level or holomorphic …

Strongly Correlated Systems Under High Magnetic Field: A Mixed Landau Levels Description For Fractional Quantum Hall Effect, Sumanta Bandyopadhyay

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Strong correlation among electrons under high magnetic field gives rise to an entirely new arena of emergent physics, namely fractional quantum Hall effect. Such systems have entirely different elementary degrees of freedom and generally, demand non-perturbative approaches to develop a better understanding. In the literature, there are several analytical methodologies and numerical toolkits available to study such a system. Clustering of zeros, parent Hamiltonian, off-diagonal order parameter, parton construction, matrix product states are to be named among a few of those popular methodologies in the existing literature. Most of these methods work well in the lowest Landau level or holomorphic …

Toward Devices For Exploring Pt-Symmetry In Electronic Transport Of Graphene, Michael Carovillano

Senior Honors Papers / Undergraduate Theses

Parity-time symmetry, or PT -symmetry is the principle that in quantum mechanics a non- Hermitian Hamiltonian is capable of returning real eigenstates and real spectra.Recent research has demonstrated real world observation of PT -symmetry in electronics and optics. We aim to expand the regime of observed PT -symmetry through measurement of the electronic transport of graphene devices. Drawing from analogous experiments, we plan to use balanced ohmic resistance acting as both loss and relative gain to induce the required unbroken PT -symmetry regime. This paper analyzes techniques used in fabrication of such devices as well as the basis of the …

Extraordinary Magnetoresistance In Encapsulated Graphene Devices, Bowen Zhou

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

We report a study on the phenomenon of extraordinary magnetoresistance (EMR) in boron nitride encapsulated monolayer graphene devices. Extremely large EMR values–calculated as the change in magnetoresistance, (R(B)–R0)/R0–can be found in these devices due to the vanishingly small resistance values at zero field. In many devices the zero-field resistance can become negative, which enables R0 to be chosen arbitrarily close to zero depending only on measurement precision, resulting in very large EMR. We critically discuss the dependence of EMR on measurement precision and device asymmetry. On the other hand, we also find the largest reported values of the sensitivity to …

Electronic Transport Behavior Of Adatom- And Nanoparticle-Decorated Graphene, Jamie Anne Elias

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

To induce a non-negligible spin-orbit coupling in monolayer graphene, for the purposes of realizing the Kane-Mele Hamiltonian, transition metal adatoms have been deposited in dilute amounts by thermal evaporation in situ while holding the device temperature near 4K. Electronic transport studies including measurements such as gate voltage dependent conductivity and mobility, weak localization, high field magnetoresistance (Shubnikov de Haas oscillations), quantum Hall, and nonlocal voltage were performed at low temperature before and after sequential evaporations. Studies of tungsten adatoms are consistent with literature regarding other metal adatoms on graphene but were unsuccessful in producing a spin-orbit signature, at least partially …

Quantum Fields In Extreme Backgrounds, Leandro Medina De Oliveira

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Quantum field theories behave in interesting and nontrivial ways in the presence of intense electric and/or magnetic fields. Describing such behavior correctly, particularly at finite (nonzero) temperature and density, is of importance for particle physics, nuclear physics, astrophysics, condensed matter physics, and cosmology. Incorporating these conditions as external parameters also provides useful probes into the nonperturbative structure of gauge theories.

In this work, formalism for describing matter in a variety of extreme conditions is developed and implemented. We develop several expansions of one-loop finite temperature effects for spinor particles in the presence of magnetic fields, including the effects of confinement, …

Supercooled: An Equilibrium, Melting-Based, Energy Distribution Approach For Describing The Phenomenology Of Metastable Liquids, Nicholas Bryan Weingartner

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The glass transition remains one of the great open problems of modern physics. This dissertation aims to increase understanding of this topic by studying the rich phenomenology of supercooled liquids, the metastable precursors to the glassy state. Principally, we aim to discover what underlying physics leads to the dramatic, non-Arrhenius increase of the viscosity and relaxation time of supercooled liquids, and what thermodynamic properties govern this physics. We propose a novel framework and associated viscosity function applicable to all supercooled liquids/glassy systems, and rigorously assess both the performance and implications of this model. We demonstrate that the theoretical framework uncovers …