Dr. Daniel Dougherty, professor, North Carolina State University
Friday, October 4, 2019
Garwod Hall, Room 107
Refreshments will be served at 3:30 p.m. and the talk will begin at 4 p.m.
This event is free and open to the public.
The idea of “quantum materials” might sound redundant but it is motivated by profound recent discoveries of topological phases in materials that had been once thought to be very simple [1]. At present, focus on identification of new quantum materials is driven by hopes of future quantum information technologies that will require careful control of quantum states in complex solids. An important challenge is that information stored in the quantum state of a solid may be degraded as the solid evolves toward a thermal state, i.e. one characterized by an “effective” temperature. We need to ask: If we manipulate a quantum system, will it always thermalize and, if so, how rapidly? In this talk, Dougherty will present an overview of quantum materials and modern ideas about thermalization in many body systems.
Dougherty is an experimental condensed matter physicist focused on the study of solid surfaces, interfaces and thin films. He earned his Ph.D from the University of Maryland at College Park and did postdoctoral research in the Surface Science Center at the University of Pittsburgh and in the Surface and Microanalysis Science Division at NIST, Gaithersburg. He started a new Surface Physics laboratory at N.C. State in 2008.
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Dr. Daniel Dougherty, professor, North Carolina State University
Dr. Daniel Dougherty, professor, North Carolina State University