The University of Connecticut College of Liberal Arts and Sciences 2152 Hillside Road Storrs, CT 06269-3046 DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICS NEWS Volume I Issue 12 August, 2008 Albert Fert, Katzenstein Distinguished Lecturer Friday, October 24, 2008 This year’s Katzenstein Distinguished Lecture sensitivity of GMR-based recording heads has led will be given by Prof. Albert Fert of Université to a reduction in the bit size, and hence an enor- Paris-Sud, France. He shared the 2007 Nobel Prize mous increase in the storage capacity and reading in Physics with Prof. Peter Grünberg of the Institut speed of magnetic hard-disk drives. It took less than für Festkörperforschung in Jülich, Germany “for the ten years from the discovery to the implementation discovery of giant magnetoresistance” (GMR), the of GMR technology in hard-disks of computers, effect that fueled a dramatic increase in the capac- making this phenomenon one of the most quickly ity of computer hard drives and has led to the rapid utilized in commercial technology. iPods, laptops development of a new field of research and applica- and rapid search engines are among the modern tions known as spintronics. icons made possible by GMR. This discovery gives Although magnetoresistance has been known impetus to both basic research and applied physics, for over a century, the discovery of the GMR shifting the focus from the transport of charge (elec- phenomenon in 1988, independently by Profes- trical current) to the transport of spin (spin current). sor Fert’s and Professor Grünberg’s groups, was In this new field of spintronics, the electrons’ spin is highly unexpected. Prior to that, it was believed that used to transport and to store information. This new magnetoresistance, which is the change in electrical technology may not only enable computers to be- resistance due to an external magnetic field, could come faster and more energy efficient, but it might reach at most a few percent in ferromagnets. The also provide new functionalities, for example quan- GMR discovered in multilayer materials, consisting tum information processing. Currently, the field of ferromagnetic layers separated by a very thin non- of spintronics encompasses new effects such as: magnetic metallic layer, surpasses 100 percent. The tunnelling magnetoresistance, colossal magnetore- physics behind the GMRis based on the difference sistance, spin injection, spin torque, spin currents, in scattering rate of the electrons traveling through a spins utilized for quantum computation, and the ferromagnetic conductor, depending on the relative evolution of a new class of materials, like magnetic orientation of their spin to the magnetization direc- semiconductors, some of which will be discussed in tion of the conductor — with those oriented parallel this year’s Katzenstein Distinguished Lecture. scattering less often than those oriented antiparallel. Prof. Fert graduated in physics and mathematics A consequence of GMR has been to revolution- from the Ecole Normale Supérieure (Paris, France) ize the magnetic recording industry: the very high in 1962 and received his doctoral degree in Phys- ics at the Université Paris-Sud (France) in 1970. Packard Europhysics Prize awarded by the European He is currently Professor of Physics at Université Physical Society (1997). In 2007, he received the Paris-Sud and Scientific Director at Unité Mixte de Japan Prize given by the Science and Technology Physique CNRS-Thales (Orsay, France). In addition Foundation of Japan for “the discovery of Giant to the Nobel Prize in Physics, Prof. Fert has been the Magneto-Resistance (GMR) and its contribution recipient of numerous awards and prizes, including to the development of innovative spin-electronics the International Prize for New Materials awarded devices.” Also in 2007, he was co-recipient of the by the American Physical Society (1994), the Mag- Wolf Prize in Physics. Prof. Fert has been a member netism Award awarded by the International Union of the French Academy of Science since 2004. for Pure and Applied Physics (1994), the Hewlett- Reynolds Lecture to Honor 100th Anniversary of Liquefaction of Helium David M. Lee, Cornell University, co-recipi- nell, and Douglas D. Osheroff, now at Stanford ent of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1996 for his University, for their work at Cornell in the early work on helium 3, will present the Charles Reyn- 1970s. They had to chill their 3He sample to a olds Distinguished Lecture on Friday, Septem- temperature of only 2 mK before it transformed ber 26, 2008. His talk is “One Hundred Years into a superfluid, a special liquid state of matter of Superfluidity.” Professor Lee received his which flows without viscosity. The superfluid- undergraduate degree from Harvard and his M.S. ity of 4He is understood as a condensation of from the University of Connecticut in 1955, fol- weakly interacting bosons. 3He is a fermion fluid lowed by his Ph.D. at and forms pairs of Yale. While at UConn, atoms analogous to Professor Lee worked the Cooper pairs of in the laboratory of electrons in super- Charles Reynolds for conductivity. The whom this lecture se- phase transition ries has been named. in 3He was discov- Professor Reynolds ered almost four was the co-discoverer decades later and of the isotope effect a thousand times in superconductors lower in tem- which pointed to perature than the the electron-phonon transition in 4He. interaction as a major Another notable factor in the mecha- distinction is the nism for superconductivity. Professor Lee was constituents; the fermion pairs are magnetic also a fellow student of Henry Katzenstein who and possess an internal structure which makes received our first doctoral degree in physics. At 3He more complex and possessed of more phas- that time, Charles Reynolds was a professor in es than the other isotope. Professor Lee is very our department. knowledgeable in all aspects of liquid helium 2008 is the 100th anniversary of the lique- and its historic 100 years of research since the faction of helium by K. Onnes in Leiden, Hol- discovery. Professor Lee is a strong supporter land. This achievement led to the discovery of of our department and a former Katzenstein superconductivity in 1911, also by K. Onnes. Distinguished Lecturer. We are delighted to The 1996 Nobel Prize was jointly awarded to have this spirited and dedicated physicist help David Lee and Robert C. Richardson of Cor- us celebrate this special year. CARBON IN THE 21ST CENTURY Joint Meeting of the APS/AAPT New England Sections One hundred eighty-nine registrants and seventy-three students attended the Fall 2007 Joint Meeting of the NES-APS/AAPT, Oct. 19-20, 2007, at the University of Connecticut in Storrs. The number includes three physicists from far-away South Korea who traveled exclusively to participate in this meeting; they were attracted by the popular topic “Carbon in the 21st Century.” The techni- 2 cal program showcased invited speakers who addressed different branches of physics with the Spike Lee’s production company, Forty common theme of modern day carbon, including Acres & A Mule Filmworks, has acquired the nanotubes, fullerenes and graphene. film rights to Professor Ronald Mallett’s Listing of Plenary Speakers: Tony Heinz, book, “Time Traveler – a Scientist’s Per- sonal Mission to Make Time Travel a Real- Columbia University, Optical Spectroscopy and ity.” Read more at http://advance.uconn. Dynamics in Carbon Nanotubes; Antonio Castro edu/2008/080623/08062303.htm. Neto, Boston University, Drawing Conclusions from Graphene Carbon in the 21st Century; Walter de Heer, Georgia Institute of Technology, Sir Harold W. Kroto, Florida State University, Nanopatterned Epitaxial Graphene: A New Para- who shared the 1996 Nobel Prize for chemistry digm for Nanoelectronics; Philip Kim, Columbia with Richard Smalley and Robert Curl of Rice University, Relativistic Quantum Physics at Your University for their discovery of the carbon-60 Pencil Tips: Dirac Fermion in Graphitic Carbon; molecule, named Buckminsterfullerene. Lisa Pfefferle, Yale University, Exploration of In addition to the plenary talks, both the Nanotube Structure Selectivity Using Bimetallic APS and AAPT sections provided opportuni- Catalysts. The Keynote Banquet Speaker was ties for participation with contributed oral talks and poster sessions, and the AAPT component also included several workshops on Saturday “The Nature of Light afternoon. The AAPT contributors include What is a Photon?” Christine Broadbridge, SCSU; Eugenia Etkina, has just been published by CRC Press. It con- Rutgers; William Gerace, UMass; George tains up-to-date theory, practice and philosophi- Gibson, UConn; Laurence Gould, University of cal implications of optics. The book was edited Hartford; Russell Harkay, Keene State College; by Chandrasekhar Roychoudhuri, University of Connecticut, A. F. Kracklauer, Weimar, Ger- David Perry, UConn; and Fred Myers, Glaston- many, and Katherine Creath, Tucson, AZ. bury Public Schools. The Norman Hascoe Lectures on the Frontiers of Science The Department of Physics just enjoyed our tenth year of a lecture series funded by the late Mr. Norman Hascoe of Greenwich, Connecticut. The series, aimed at exciting undergraduates with scientific interests in frontier areas of science, is open to the public and is followed yb a reception and an informal panel discussion. We were very pleased with our lectures this past year: ♦ Harold Kroto, Florida State University, “Science, Society, and Sustainability” ♦ Ignacio Cirac, Max-Planck Institut für