Materials Science Research Lecture
***Refreshments at 3:45pm in Noyes lobby
Abstract:
The ability to create and manipulate materials in 2D form has repeatedly had transformative impact on science and technology. We introduce two efforts in this context, which have the common element of applying soft chemistry techniques to oxide thin film heterostructures.
The first is superconductivity in layered nickelates, which are synthesized by removing planes of oxygen from a 3D nickel oxide using topotactic reduction. Notable aspects are a doping-dependent superconducting dome, strong magnetic fluctuations, instabilities towards charge stripes, and a landscape of unusual normal state properties from which superconductivity emerges.
The second topic is based on a method to create freestanding complex oxide membranes and heterostructures using epitaxial water-soluble buffer layers, with millimeter-scale lateral dimensions and nanometer-scale thickness. We have used this geometry to use strain and strain gradients to induce phase transitions and novel mechanical response in the thin limit.
More about the Speaker:
Harold Y. Hwang is Professor of Applied Physics (Stanford University) and Photon Science (SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory), Senior Fellow of the Precourt Institute for Energy, and Director of the Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Sciences. He received a BS in Physics, BS and MS in Electrical Engineering from MIT (1993), and a PhD in Physics from Princeton University (1997). He was formerly a Member of Technical Staff at Bell Laboratories (1996-2003) and Professor at the University of Tokyo (2003-2010). His research is in condensed matter and materials physics, with a focus on correlated electrons and emergent phenomena in quantum materials, and heterostructures for energy applications and devices. He is a fellow of the American Physical Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and member of the National Academy of Sciences. Awards include the MRS Outstanding Young Investigator Award (2005), the IBM Japan Science Prize (Physics, 2008), the Ho-Am Prize (Science, 2013), the Europhysics Prize (2014), and the McGroddy Prize (2024).