Prof. Maiken Mikkelsen and her group have a new paper, "Large-Area Metasurface Perfect Absorbers from Visible to Infra-Red," published this week in Advanced Materials. Pratt School's press release can be read online here. read more about Mikkelsen Group Demonstrates Self-Assembled Metasurface Perfect Absorbers »
Approximately 1300 physicists from five experiments were awarded a share of the $3M Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics. The prizes were presented at a live ceremony on Sunday, Nov. 8, at 10/9c on National Geographic Channel. Duke University physicists made major contributions to two of the five recognized groups of experiments: Super-Kamiokande and both the T2K and K2K experiments. The leaders of the experiments Takaaki Kajita, Yoichiro Suzuki, and Ko Nishikawa represented the collaborations and received the awards… read more about Super-Kamiokande and T2K Experiments Awarded Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics »
The Duke Research website is currently featuring two articles about TUNL. "Low-Energy, High-Impact Physics" is a historical celebration of the lab's upcoming 50th anniversary and showcases a nice video from UNC Chapel Hill. Read about TUNL alumni in "Nuclear Lab Alumni Went on to Leadership." read more about TUNL's 50th Anniversary on Duke University Research »
The 35th edition of Dynamics Days US conference will be held in Durham in January, organized by Triangle university representatives from departments of Physics, Mathematics, and Engineering. The members of the organizing committee are Physics Profs. Robert Behringer, Daniel Gauthier, and Joshua Socolar, Pratt Prof. Lawrence Virigin, Math Prof. Tom Witelski, Physics researcher Otti D’Huys and Physics graduate student Nicholas Haynes from… read more about Duke, UNC and NCSU Host XXXV Dynamics Days US 2016 »
Congratulations to Prof. Stefano Curtarolo and his team for their new publication in Nature Communication on a new class of Entropy stabilized materials. Read it online here. Additional congratulations are due for their multi-valley bands parameterization of high-performance thermoelectrics in Nature Materials which can be read here. read more about Prof. Curtarolo's Team Published in Nature Communications and Nature Materials »
Congratulations to Takaaki Kajita from the University of Tokyo and Art McDonald from Queens University for the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery of neutrino oscillations! Today the Nobel prize was awarded to Takaaki Kajita and Art McDonald for the discovery of neutrino oscillations. You can read more about the prize here at the Nobel committee’s website and here at Symmetry magazine. Professor Kajita was given the award for his work on the Super-Kamiokande experiment. Profs. Kate Scholberg and… read more about Nobel Prize Awarded for Neutrino Oscillations! »
Prof. Gleb Finkelstein has been elected a Fellow of the American Physics Society for "significant experimental studies of quantum transport in nanostructures, especially electron correlation effects in artificial quantum impurity systems." Click here to visit the Finkelstein Group page. read more about Prof. Finkelstein Elected APS Fellow »
Fourth year graduate student Emilie Huffman has won the National Physical Science Consortium Fellowship. Ms. Huffman is a student of Prof. Shailesh Chandrasekharan and is working in the field of strongly correlated fermion systems. More information about the fellowship program can be found on the NPSC website here. read more about Emilie Huffman Wins NPSC Fellowship »
The Duke Teaching Observatory, with Prof. Ronen Plesser and Lab Administrator Yuriy Bomze, was featured on DukeToday. Click here to read "Spend an Evening Among Stars and Planets." This article was also published in the August/September 2015 edition of Working@Duke employee magazine on page 10. Additionally, WRAL picked up the story. You can read "Duke observatory offers open houses, hands-on access to stars" online here. Future stargazing events are listed here. read more about Duke Teaching Observatory Represented on DukeToday and WRAL »
“I like to build things that don’t exist,” says entrepreneur William J. “Bill” Brown, who earned his PhD in physics from Duke in 1999. “In physics, I did tabletop experiments where I had to do it all—optics, electronics, mechanics, software, and theory. Now, I view a company as something new I’m building.” When Brown began his graduate studies at Duke, he was planning a career in academia. Halfway through, he realized that wasn’t the path for him. He was more drawn to the idea of entrepreneurship. “I’ve… read more about Bill Brown: Finding System Solutions »
In his search for evidence of cosmic inflation, Duke Physics alum Jamie Bock (B.S. ’87) uses on-ground telescopes, high-altitude balloons, rockets, and satellites. Bock is a professor of physics at Caltech as well as a senior research scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). “Our groups build one-of-a-kind instruments to answer questions about the early universe,” he says. Cosmic inflation is the rapid expansion theorized to have occurred just after the Big Bang. “Inflation does make observable… read more about Jamie Bock: Building Detectors to Look for Evidence of Cosmic Inflation »
This July, graduate student Venkitesh Ayyar attended "Prospects in Theoretical Physics" at the "Princeton Summer School on Condensed Matter Physics." Pictured below are all participants and speakers. read more about Grad Student Ayyar Attends Princeton Summer School »
Undergraduate Physics student Jenny Su (B.S. '15) has written an article about the APS Conference for Undergraduate Women in Physics held at Duke this past January. Su's article is a "Meeting Notes" feature in the spring 2015 issue of The SPS Observer, the magazine of the Society of Physics Students. See the full issue here. Su's contribution is on pages 26 and 31. read more about Physics Undergrad Su Wrote Meeting Note for the SPS Observer »
From August 3-7, Duke Kunshan University (DKU), with co-host Shanghai Jiao Tong University, held the seventh Workshop on Hadron Physics in China and Opportunities Worldwide that gave scientists the opportunity to present research and exchange ideas in hadron physics. Duke Physics Profs. Berndt Mueller and Haiyan Gao were in attendance. Read more on DKU's website here. read more about DKU Holds 7th Workshop on Hadron Physics »
John H. Gibbons (PhD '54), one of the earliest PhDs in nuclear physics from Duke University and Presidential Science Advisor under Bill Clinton from 1993-1998, died from complications from a stroke on Tuesday July 18, 2015. You can read his obituary in The New York Times here. read more about Alum Gibbons Dies at 86 »
Jiani Huang has been awarded as a Scholar in the prestigious John T. Chambers Scholar program for 2015-2017 in the Fitzpatrick Institute for Photonics (FIP) at the Pratt School of Engineering. Huang was nominated by her advisor Prof. Maiken Mikkelsen. The John T. Chambers Fellowship Program has been a part of FIP since 2001 and provides monetary support for graduate student recipients. Congratulations to Jiani! read more about Grad Student Huang Receives Chambers Sholarship »
Profs. Maiken Mikkelsen and David Smith's group has published a new paper in Nature. Read "Ultrafast spontaneous emission source using plasmonic nanoantennas" online here. There has been significant media coverage on their paper as well: Nature.com Photonics.com Phys.org Pratt's website read more about Profs. Mikkelsen and Smith's Group's Research Featured in Nature »
Prof. Ayana Arce, postdoc Enrique Kajomovitz and graduate student Lei Li, members of the High Energy Physics research group, have been investigating mysterious features of the ATLAS data from the Large Hadron Collider. Recently they made their results public. Below are links to two news articles with more information. Symmetry Magazine's "Something goes bump in the data" The Guardian's "Something to watch for in the new data from the Large Hadron Collider" read more about HIgh Energy Physics Research Group Investigates ATLAS Data from the LHC »
On Friday, July 10, Trinity College announced that Prof. Warren S. Warren will be appointed as the new Chair of the Department of Physics beginning September 1, 2015. Prof. Warren is a James B. Duke Professor with appointments in Physics, Chemistry, Radiology and Biomedical Engineering and is also the Director of the Center for Molecular and Biomolecular Imaging. See Warren's faculty profile here and visit the Warren Group page here. Congratulations and welcome! read more about Prof. Warren to Chair Duke Physics »
Chris Flower, a Physics undergraduate student working in Prof. Haiyan Gao's group, was selected as a 2015-2016 Undergraduate American Nuclear Scholar by the American Nuclear Society. Flower will be recognized at the ANS national chapter meeting in San Antonio later this year. read more about Undergraduate Flower is 2015-2016 Undergraduate American Nuclear Scholar »
Profs. Henry Greenside and Roxanne Springer have been recognized for receiving course evaluations in the top 5% of all undergraduate courses in the categories of Quality of Course and/or Intellectual Stimulation for small classes (Springer) or mid-size classes (Greenside). Greenside taught PHY 162: Fundamentals of Physics II and this is his third year in a row receiving this distinction. Springer taught PHY 153: Applications of Physics. From the office of Lee Baker, Dean for Academic… read more about Profs. Greenside and Springer Receive Course Evaluations in the Top 5% »
Sargis Karapetyan, a Physics graduate student in Prof. Nicolas Buchler's lab was featured in DukeToday for his paper "Redox rhythm reinforces the circadian clock to gate immune response." Read the DukeToday article "Dual Internal Clocks Keep Plant Defenses on Schedule" here and read the paper on Nature's website here. read more about Grad Student Karapetyan's Research Featured on Nature and DukeToday »
The Physics Department has selected graduate students Ron Malone and Andrew Seredinski for the Mary Creason Memorial Award for 2015. Their performances as Teaching Assistants in the introductory laboratory courses has been exemplary and highly appreciated by their colleagues in the department. Certificates will be presented to Malone and Seredinksi at the Annual Physics Department Picnic on Saturday, August 22. More information on this award can be found on the Fellowships page here. read more about Grad Students Malone and Seredinski Selected for 2015 Mary Creason Memorial Award »
The Physics Department has nominated graduate students Kevin Holway and Xiaojun Yao for the AAPT Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award for 2015. Their performances as Teaching Assistants have been exemplary and highly appreciated by their colleagues in the department. With the award, AAPT also offers the students one year of free membership. Certificates will be presented to Holway and Yao at the Annual Physics Department Picnic on Saturday, August 22. More information on this award can be… read more about Grad Students Holway and Yao Nominated for 2015 AAPT Outstanding TA Award »
Mathematics and Physics Prof. Jianfeng Lu has been named the recipient of a CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation. The theme of this award is to develop advanced computational methods for quantum and statistical mechanics. See details along with Lu's abstract here. read more about Prof. Lu Receives NSF CAREER Award »
Prof. Warren S. Warren was featured in a Pratt School of Engineering news release about his work with pump-probe spectroscopy that has aided the fields of both medicine and art. Read the article "A New Way of Looking at Melanomas and Renaissance Paintings" here. read more about Prof. Warren Refines Laser Technique for Use in Fields of Dermatology and Art »
Prof. Phil Barbeau, assistant professor in Physics, has been awarded a Department of Energy Early Career Research Award from the Office of High Energy Physics. The program supports the development of individual research programs of outstanding scientists early in thier careers and also stimulates research careers in the areas supported by the DOE Office of Science. Barbeau is one of 44 early career selectees this year; there were 27 from universities and 17 from national laboratories. The grant will help… read more about Prof. Barbeau Receives DOE Early Career Research Award »
Profs. Maiken Mikkelsen and David R. Smith with others, including researchers Gleb Akselrod and Thang Ba Hoang have had a new paper published in Nano Letters. You can read Leveraging Nanocavity Harmonics for Control of Optical Processes in 2D Semiconductors" here. read more about Profs. Mikkelsen and Smith with Others Publish Paper in Nano Letters »
The annual undergraduate poster session was held on Wednesday, April 23, 2015. Eleven students displayed and presented their research. Awards for First, Second and Third place were determined by a panel of judges and presented by Director of Undergraduate Studies and Prof. Kate Scholberg. Third place prize was a tie between Katrina Miller and Lydia Thurman. Here they are proudly sharing the honor: Second prize went to Connor… read more about 2015 Undergraduate Poster Session »
During the April 23rd undergraduate poster session, the 2015 Daphne Chang Memorial Award recipient was announced. The award is presented each year to students who excel in undergraduate research in the department. Prof. Steffen A. Bass shared the history of Daphne and the meaning behind the award, which may be read here. This year's award goes to junior Melody Lim. Congratulations to Lim on this honor! read more about 2015 Daphne Chang Memorial Award »