PHYSICS_final2_Layout 1 10/22/15 12:09 PM Page 4
PHYSICS_final2_Layout 1 10/22/15 12:09 PM Page 1
College of Science and Technology
PHYSICS
College of Science and Technology
1803 N. Broad Street
400 Carnell Hall
Philadelphia, PA 19122
UPDATE FALL 2015
For more news, go to phys.cst.temple.edu
DEAN’S DISTINGUISHED LECTURE
Saul Rappaport, CST ’63
Professor of Physics, M.I.T
Planetary and Stellar Science
from the Kepler Mission
November 11, 2015, 4PM
Science Education and Research Center (SERC)
1925 N. 12th Street, Temple University, Main Campus
Philadelphia, PA 19122
Look for details at cst.temple.edu
Department launches ‘studio physics’
courses for intro classes
To enhance student engagement, comprehension and success,
this fall all introductory-level classes in both mechanics and in
electricity & magnetism will be transitioned form large lecture hall
formats involving several hundred students to smaller classes of
up to 60 students.
Developed under the leadership of Associate Professors Zbiegniew
Dziembowski and Bernd Surrow, the “studio physics’ concept
has been updated by various universities. It was successfully
piloted at MIT, where Surrow previously taught and utilized the
teaching program. The format combines elements of lecturing
and recitation with interactive response systems, group problems
and discussions.
“Based on studies conducted at MIT,” said Surrow, “the problemsolving sessions, two- and three-dimensional visualizations, as well
as collaborative desktop experiments, web-based assignments and
personal response systems-based conceptual questions, significantly
enhance students’ understanding of the subject matter.”
The courses will be taught in two dedicated, high-tech classrooms
in the new Science Education and Research Center (SERC)
equipped will small tables that allow for three-student learning
teams. Labs will also be conducted in new SERC undergraduate
teaching labs.
Eventually, the two calculus-based introductory physics classes
for pre-med students and two algebra-based introductory physics
classes will follow the same format.
Alexander Gray earns prestigious
Young Investigator award
Alexander Gray, a new
assistant professor of
physics, has received
a prestigious Young
Investigator Program
award from the U.S.
Army Research Office.
Gray specializes in the
development of new,
ultrafast X-ray spectroscopic
and imaging techniques.
These techniques aim to
understand how new phases
of matter arise far from
equilibrium and how
ultrafast electric-field pulses
can be used to separate
and control fundamental
physical interactions on
the nanoscale.
A 2011 recipient of a PhD in physics from the University
of California, Davis and the Lawrence Berkeley National
Laboratory, Gray is an expert in bulk-sensitive and depthresolved X-ray spectroscopic and imaging probes of electronic
structure. During his graduate career he pioneered new X-ray
techniques, such as hard x-ray angle-resolved photoelectron
spectroscopy (HARPES) and standing-wave excited angleresolved photoelectron spectroscopy (SW-ARPES).
These techniques have been since successfully applied by Gray,
collaborators and other researchers to bulk- and interfacesensitive studies of key materials in the field of spintronics,
as well as to the interfaces of relevance to low-dimensional
heterostructuring and energy-efficient field-effect devices.
Previously Gray spent three years as an experimental research
associate at the Institute for Materials and Energy Science at
Stanford University, where he conducted research at the
Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory.
Message from the Chair
OUR DEPARTMENT’S MOVE LAST FALL INTO
THE NEW SCIENCE EDUCATION AND RESEARCH
CENTER (SERC)—and our ongoing recruitment of outstanding faculty members to maximize the building’s
exceptional research and teaching resources—have
dramatically heightened the department’s stature.
Hires to our growing faculty of 22 since 2012 include:
Bernd Surrow, a high-energy collider researcher
from MIT; Alexander Gray, a former material science
Stanford University postdoctoral research associate;
Darius Torchinsky, a quantum electronics researchers
from Caltech; and John Perdew and Adrienn
Ruzsinszky, from Tulane University. Perdew is a
leader in density functional theory and author of a
top-100 cited paper according to Thomson Reuters
Web of Science database. And I joined Temple after
20 years at Rensselaer with a focus in experimental
nuclear and particle physics.
Recent highlights also include:
• Our hosting a nuclear physics town meeting that
attracted about 250 physicists from the U.S. and
around the world to help determine the direction
of our country’s nuclear research.
• The designation of our Center for the
Computational Design of Functional Layered
Materials directed by Perdew as one of just 10
new federal Energy Frontier Research Centers.
• The successful test and implementation of Rongjia
Tao’s technology to enhance the flow of crude oil
through pipelines.
To witness the exciting research and teaching
that is occurring here, please visit us online at
phys.cst.temple.edu or in person.
Jim Napolitano
Interim Chair, Department of Physics
phys.cst.temple.edu
Town meeting at Temple will guide future
U.S. nuclear physics research
About 250 prominent physicists attended a three-day town meeting hosted
last September by the College of Science and Technology’s Nuclear Physics
Group to chart the future direction of nuclear physics research.
At stake was which of two U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) laboratories
would best house a new electron-ion collider (EIC) facility that would utilize
the world’s brightest and most versatile microscope—either the Brookhaven
National Laboratory on Long Island or the Thomas Jefferson National
Acceleratory Laboratory in Newport News, Virginia.
The new facility would offer an alternative to the high-energy Large Hadron
Collider near Geneva, Switzerland, that in 2012 enabled physicists to finally
detect the long-sought Higgs bosun particle. Professor James Napolitano,
interim chair of the Department of Physics and co-chair of the town meeting,
said, “Probing nucleons with the highest resolution microscopes is another
way to investigate the structure and dynamics of nucleons—which would be
the purpose of a new collider at either BNL or JLab. This collider would
ensure U.S. leadership in the field of nuclear science for decades to come.”
Meeting attendees voted unanimously in favor of constructing an EIC. As
Physics Today reported, when and where that occurs will begin to be
determined later this year.
“It was a prestigious honor for Temple and the Department of Physics,”
says meeting co-chair and Associate Professor Bernd Surrow. “When I told a
colleague at the Department of Energy that we would be hosting the meeting,
he said, ‘Now Temple is on the map.’”
PHYSICS_final2_Layout 1 10/22/15 12:09 PM Page 2
PHYSICS_final2_Layout 1 10/22/15 12:09 PM Page 3
Device enhances oil pipeline flow
An electrical device designed by professor of physics Rongjia Tao, which enhances
the flow of crude oil through pipelines, has been successfully field tested on
portions of a major U.S. pipeline.
Tao’s oil technology device reduces the viscosity and turbulence of crude oil.
Patented by Temple University, the device was created with the financial support
of QS Energy, Inc., a Santa Barbara, California-based developer and vendor of
commercial flow assurance solutions.
John Perdew, Laura H. Carnell Professor of Physics
and Chemistry and director of the Center for the
Computational Design of Functional Layered Materials
with Michael L. Klein, FRS, Dean, College Science and
Technology and Laura H. Carnell Professor of Science.
Physics center named
a DOE Energy Frontier
Research Center
The department is the new home of a federally
funded Energy Frontier Research Center focusing
on the design of new layered materials that will
have potential use in energy applications.
The Center for the Computational Design of
Functional Layered Materials is one of 10 new
Energy Frontier Research Centers announced last
summer by the U.S. Department of Energy,
which awarded a four-year, $12 million grant.
The purpose: to fund basic research into the
design of new layered materials with potential
future applications for the ways that energy is
produced and stored.
The center’s director is John Perdew, Laura H.
Carnell Professor of Physics and Chemistry. The
18 other principal investigators include five more
Department of Physics researchers, including
Professor Xiaoxing Xi; four Department of
Chemistry researchers, including CST Dean
Michael L. Klein; and nine others from prestigious
U.S. universities, the Brookhaven National
Laboratory and a research center in India.
“The interesting thing about the single layers of
materials is you can very readily change them
and control the properties of that material,” said
Perdew. “For instance, you could tune it to absorb
a particular frequency or frequencies of light for
conversion into electricity.”
Perdew said the center’s theoretical or computational scientists are using computer simulations to
add various atoms or molecules to a particular
material’s surface or change the material’s
structure and then compute whether those
changes affect the material’s properties in a
desired way to create a new material.
Experimental scientists working at the center
will then grow these new materials and test
their applications.
Utilizing electrorheology principles, Tao’s devices have been installed just
downstream from pipeline pumps. The electrical field polarizes suspended
nanoparticles found in crude oil, causing them to aggregate in short chains along
the flow direction—which both decreases viscosity in that direction and effectively
suppressing turbulence. This green technology may eliminate the need to heat the
crude oil, a current costly industry standard, while significantly reducing required
pumping pressures.
Field tests have indicated viscosity decreases. “It also reduces the power needed to
pump crude oil while the flow rate is unchanged,” added Tao. “And by reducing
pumping pressures, it’s much safer for both land-based pipelines and pipelines
that connect with off-shore drilling sites.”
Garett Miller:
Undergraduate research
in protein folding
Undergraduate Research Program (URP)
student Garett Miller, CST ’16, a senior
physics major and computer science
minor, was uncertain whether he wanted
to go to graduate school and, if he did,
was not sure if he wanted to go into
astrophysics or biophysics—until he began
working with Vincent Voelz, assistant
professor of chemistry.
He focused on protein folding, a process
integral to such mental illnesses as Alzheimer’s and mad-cow disease. In nature,
such proteins fold in a microsecond, but to simulate that process it was taking
Miller 240 hours’ worth of time on the university’s high-performance supercomputer network.
“There was always a question about continuing my education, but this summer
was pretty successful so I feel secure about going to grad school for biophysics,”
he says. “When you’re doing a lab assignment for class, you don’t really have any
attachment to it. But in this lab what I am doing has direct implications for people
who have those diseases, at least that’s the goal.”
Launched in 2009, URP enables under-graduates to obtain valuable hands-on
research experience with world-class researchers. Since then, 750 CST students
have participated in the highly selective program.
Support undergraduate research
CST’s Undergraduate Research Program (URP) offers motivated
students the opportunity to work with world-class researchers on
real-world research. More than 750 students have participated,
gaining a valuable advantage in the job market and competitive
graduate programs.
To make a gift, contact John Walker at 215-204-8176 or
john.walker@temple.edu or go to giving.temple.edu/urp
DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICS FUNDED RESEARCH
Department’s funded research portfolio continues to grow
• MgB2 thin film deposition on RF cavities,
Argonne National Laboratory
• Magnesium diboride thin films, multi-layers
and coatings for SRF cavities, DOE
ATOMIC, MOLECULAR AND
OPTICAL PHYSICS
NUCLEAR AND PARTICLE
PHYSICS
Marjatta Lyyra and Ergin Ahmed
• Control of molecular quantum state
character by coherence effects, NSF
Svetlana Kotochigova
• Quantum magnetism of strongly correlated
magnetic atoms and molecules, Air Force
Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR)
• Controlling anisotropy in interactions
of ultracold atoms and molecules for
quantum information processing, NSF
• High-resolution quantum control of
chemical reactions, MURI Army Research
Office (ARO)
• Precision chemical sensing and quantum
control of ultracold molecular ion
reactions, MURI ARO
CONDENSED MATTER AND
MATERIAL SCIENCE
Ke Chen (PI) and Xiaoxing Xi
• Superconducting circuits using magnesium diboride Josephson junctions, Office
of Naval Research (ONR)
Alexander Gray
• Controlling fundamental physical
interactions in strongly-correlated and
two-dimensional electronic systems with
ultrafast THz electric fields, ARO Young
Investigator Program
Maria Iavarone
• VortexMatter in confined superconductors
and MesoscopicHybrid herostructures, DOE
• Manipulation of chiral charge
DensityWaves, ARO
John Perdew (director), Maria Iavarone,
Adrienn Ruzsinsky, Xifan Wu and
Xiaoxing Xi
• Energy Frontier Research Center: Center
for the Computational Design of Functional
Layered Materials, DOE
John Perdew
• Density functional theory of electronic
structure, NSF
Xifan Wu
• Signature of molecular environment in
spectroscopy measurement of water and
aqueous solutions studied by advanced
abinitio methods, ACS Petroleum
• Advanced modeling of ions in solutions, on
surfaces and in biological environments, DOE
Xifan Wu (co-PI) and Xiaoxing Xi
• Artificial oxide heterostructures with tunable
band gap, Air Force Research Laboratory
Xiaoxing Xi
• Enhancement
of spin-lattice
coupling in
nanoengineered
oxide films and
heterostructures by
laser MBE, DOE
• Study of gap
symmetry and gap
structures in iron
pnictides using
Josephson
junctions, NSF
• Investigation and
optimization of thin
MgB2
superconducting
films for THz HEB
mixer development,
NASA/JPL
Jeff Martoff
• Collaborative Research: Direct search for
dark matter with underground argon at
LNGS, NSF
• Collaborative Research: R&D Towards
DarkSide-G2, a second-generation direct
search for dark matter, NSF
Andreas Metz
• Hard scattering processes in QCD, NSF
Zein-Eddine Meziani
• Research in nuclear physics using electromagnetic probes, DOE
Jim Napolitano
• Fundamental physics experiments with
reactor neutrinos, DOE
Nikolaos Sparveris
• Studies of hadronic structure, NSF
The Department of
Physics welcomes back
Professor Xiaoxing Xi,
after an investigation
by the U.S. Justice
Department where all
charges against him
were dropped.
Bernd Surrow
• Measurements on the structure and
dynamics of matter, DOE
• Design and assembly of fast and lightweight barrel and forward-tracking
prototype systems for an EIC, DOE
managed by Brookhaven National
Laboratory
• MRI Consortium: Collaborative Research:
Development of Phase-I DarkLight
experiment at Jefferson Laboratory, NSF
DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICS 2015 AWARDS
STUDENTS
Distinguished Graduate Student Research
Award: Steven Moore
Distinguished Graduate Student Teaching
Award: Xiangying Deng
Peter Havas Humanitarian Scholarship for
Outstanding Physics Graduate Students:
Adam Blomberg
Adrienn Ruzsinsky
• Exploring the random phase approximation
for materials and chemical physics, DOE
Alliance for Minority Participation Award
for Academic Achievement: Gregory Bell
Peter Riseborough
• Strongly correlated electron systems, DOE
Alliance for Minority Participation Award
for Research: Brandon Elman
Rongjia Tao
• Air ions produced by various isotypes,
Naval Research Lab
• Research on crude oil viscosity reduction
and diesel fuel injection, Save the World
Air
• Magnetic and electric field application to
confectionary materials, Mars Chocolate,
UK
Robert and Rita Cook Science Scholars
Fund: Jeffrey Timlin
Seda Tarzian Endowed Scholarship:
Melanie Rehfuss
The College of Science and Technology
Student Advisor Award: Jake Roemer
Undergraduate Research Program
Symposium Awards: Jeffrey Timlin
Dr. Paul G. & Beatrice Zackon Physics
Scholarship: Dillion Fox
Murray Green Memorial Prize in Physics:
2014- Brandon Elman; 2015- Dillion Fox
Donald and Annette Baird Family Award
in Science and Math Education:
Catherine Bergeron
FACULTY
Young Investigator Award, U.S. Army
Research Office: Alexander Gray
Honorary degree, Budapest University
of Technology and Economics:
John P. Perdew
Humboldt Research Award:
John P. Perdew
John Scott Award: John P. Perdew