Wednesday, September 20, 2017 @ 6:00 p.m. - Science Night Live with Dr. Sarah Li! "Spinning into the Future" at Sky SLC (149 Pierpont Ave) in downtown Salt Lake City!

SCIENCE NIGHT LIVE

"Science Night Live public lectures offer a casual social and educational event in downtown Salt Lake. All events are held at Sky SLC (149 Pierpont Ave), beginning with a social at 5:30 and a lecture at 6:00 p.m. Free and open to the public! Must be 21 years of age or older."

with Dr. Sarah Li,
Department of Physics & Astronomy, University of Utah

Spinning into the Future

Date & Time: Wednesday, September 20, 2017 at 6:00pm (Social begins at 5:30pm)

Location:Sky SLC (149 Pierpont Ave)
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First we learn to count; next we learn to multiply. From the interaction of these two elementary operations emerge the prime numbers, the building blocks of the integers.

Computers, cellphones, and other electronics have become more powerful, faster, and smaller. Many people think that the capability of electronics grows continuously forever, and try to keep up with the best technology by buying the newest gear and gadgets. However, the inevitable trend is that the current information technology based moving electron charges around is approaching its limits in speed and miniaturization. Fortunately, electrons also have the property called “spin”, which we can use to record information and do calculations. Harnessing spin could play a key role in the future of electronics, such as quantum computation and artificial intelligence. I will show examples of spintronic experiments on the intriguing spin and how it will be useful in future applications.

Science Night Live is free and open to the public 21 or over. Please arrive early, as seating and parking will be limited. Click here to learn more about the Science Night Live lecture series.

 

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Zigmund “Ziggy” Peacock, the University of Utah’s first physics and astronomy lecture demonstration specialist, fondly nicknamed, “Physics Wizard,” died on Wednesday, July 26, 2017 at 73 years of age. For nearly 30 years until his retirement in 2007, Peacock oversaw one of the largest physics demonstration shops in the country, covering more than 3,700-square-feet filled with more than 5,000 demos, many of which Peacock designed and built himself.

"He had this ability to make the unknown, known. He was a crackerjack designer and engineer. I could go to him with the most enigmatic physics concepts and he'd quickly come up with a method of demonstrating it in a clear, understandable manner,” said Ben Bromley, chair of the Department of Physics & Astronomy. “I learned an enormous amount about how to convey physics in a memorable way. He was professional always, but also mischievous.

He wowed hundreds of thousands of students, faculty, and members of the community with his scientific demonstrations. Peacock was a very intelligent man with a photographic memory, and with a knack for making sense of the most complicated subjects. Every student who took a physics course in the late 1970's up through 2007 got to know Peacock as he brought advanced physics concepts to life right in front of them. Peacock’s enthusiasm, warm sense of humor, and passion for science education and outreach made him one of the U's most venerated and beloved figures.

“The most thrilling moment for me is when a student walks up to me and says, ‘You know, I came to one of your demos in grade school and now I’m here,’ studying physics or engineering or whatever,” Peacock said in a statement to the American Association of Physics Teachers, an organization that described him as a “Utah physics demo wiz.”

During his time at the U, Peacock won many awards and accolades from various organizations, including the American Association of Physics Teachers Distinguished Service Citation in 2006, the Meritorious Service Citation from the United States Navy, for which he served for 24 years, in 2003, the Physics Distinguished Staff Award in 2005, and was named an Ambassador for the Salt Lake City Convention & Visitors Bureau in 2004.

He was also known for his unique practical jokes; he once sent a belly dancing telegram, or “bellygram,” to a lecturing professor's class on the professor’s birthday, and occasionally tossed bang-snap fireworks into classrooms to lighten the mood when the professor was being too serious. He felt that students learned best when they were having fun, and he worked diligently to ensure they were always engaged and excited.

“Ziggy was a true pioneer for physics lecture demonstrations. He left quite an amazing legacy, and not just at the U,” remembers Adam Beehler, Peacock’s successor as the U’s lecture demonstration specialist. “Other professionals and I agree that he was an innovator, an inspiration, a special and great colleague, and above all, a true dear and loved friend.”

Peacock's obituary is available here: russonmortuary.com/notices/Zigmund-Peacock. The celebration of Zig's life will take place on Saturday, August 12th from 2:00 pm to 5:00 pm at the Tower at Rice Eccles Stadium in the Varsity Room (click here for map). Entrance is via Gate E on the Northwest Corner of stadium. Parking is available on the west side of the Stadium.

See Peacock in action in his final demonstration show at the U to celebrate his retirement. Peacock begins physics at 5:37.

To honor Peacock’s memory, the Department of Physics & Astronomy is establishing an annual public science demonstration show as a tribute to Peacock’s lifelong mission to bring science education to people of all ages and abilities. The details of which will be announced on the department’s website: physics.utah.edu.

Read the full press release on the @theU website

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Scientists have solved a decade-long puzzle about lithium, an essential metal in cellphone and computer batteries. Using extreme pressure experiments and powerful supercomputing, the international team has unraveled the mystery of a fundamental property of lithium; its atoms are arranged in a simple structure, and may be the first direct evidence of a quantum solid behavior in a metal.

Until now, all previous experiments have indicated that lithium’s atoms had a complex arrangement. The idea baffled theoretical physicists. With only three electrons, lithium is the lightest, simplest metal on the periodic table and should have a simple structure to match.

The new study combined theory and experimentation to discover the true structure of lithium at cold temperatures, in its lowest energy state.

Scientists suggest that rapid cooling led lithium atoms to arrange themselves in complex structure and resulted in misinterpretation of the previous experimental results. To avoid this, Shanti Deemyad, associate professor at the University of Utah who led the experimental aspect of the study, applied extreme pressure to the lithium before cooling down the samples.

Deemyad’s research group prepared the lithium samples in tiny pressure cells at the U. The group then traveled to Argonne National Laboratory to apply pressure up to 10,000 times the Earth’s atmosphere by pressing the sample between the tip of two diamonds. They then cooled and depressurized the samples examined the structures at low pressure and temperature using X-ray beams.

The researchers looked at two isotopes of lithium — the lighter lithium 6 and heavier lithium 7. They found that the lighter isotope behaves differently in its transitions to lower energy structures under certain thermodynamic paths than the heavier isotope, a behavior previously only seen in helium. The difference means that depending on the weight of the nuclei, there are different ways to get to the lower energy states. This is a quantum solid characteristic.

Graeme Ackland, professor from the University of Edinburgh, led the theoretical aspect of the study by running the most sophisticated calculations of lithium’s structure to date, using advanced quantum mechanics on the ARCHER supercomputer. Both experimentation and theoretical parts of the study found that lithium’s lowest energy structure is not complex or disordered, as previous results had suggested. Instead, its atoms are arranged simply, like oranges in a box.

The study, from the Universities of Edinburgh and Utah, was published in Science.

Corresponding author Deemyad of the University of Utah Department of Physics & Astronomy, said: “Our experiments revealed that lithium is the first metallic element with quantum lattice structure behavior at moderate pressures. This will open up new possibilities for rich physics.”

Co-author Miguel Martinez-Canales of the University of Edinburgh School of Physics and Astronomy, said: “Our calculations needed an accuracy of one in 10 million, and would have taken over 40 years on a normal computer.”

Lead theoretical author Graeme Ackland of the University of Edinburgh School of Physics and Astronomy, said: “We were able to form a true picture of cold lithium by making it using high pressures. Rather than forming a complex structure, it has the simplest arrangement that there can be in nature.”

Read the full press release on the UNews website

 

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U-led Study Discovers a “Miracle Material” for Field of Spintronics

A University of Utah-led team has discovered that a class of “miracle materials” called organic-inorganic hybrid perovskites could be a game changer for future spintronic devices.

Spintronics uses the direction of the electron spin - either up or down - to carry information in ones and zeros. A spintronic device can process exponentially more data than traditional electronics that use the ebb and flow of electrical current to generate digital instructions. But physicists have struggled to make spintronic devices a reality.

The new study, published online today in Nature Physics, is the first to show that organic-inorganic hybrid perovskites are a promising material class for spintronics. The researchers discovered that the perovskites possess two contradictory properties necessary to make spintronic devices work — the electrons’ spin can be easily controlled, and can also maintain the spin direction long enough to transport information, a property known as spin lifetime.

“It’s a device that people always wanted to make, but there are big challenges in finding a material that can be manipulated and, at the same time, have a long spin lifetime,” says Sarah Li, assistant professor in the Department of Physics & Astronomy at the U and lead author of the study. “But for this material, it's the property of the material itself that satisfies both.”

The Miracle Material

Organic-inorganic hybrid perovskites is already famous in scientific circles for being amazingly efficient at converting sunlight into electricity.

“It’s unbelievable. A miracle material,” says Z. Valy Vardeny, distinguished professor in the Department of Physics & Astronomy and co-author of the study, whose lab studies perovskite solar cells. “In just a few years, solar cells based on this material are at 22% efficiency. And now it has this spin lifetime property. It’s fantastic.”

The material’s chemical composition is an unlikely candidate for spintronics, however. The hybrid perovskite inorganic frame is made of heavy elements. The heavier the atom, the easier it is to manipulate the electron spin. That’s good for spintronics. But other forces also influence the spin. When the atoms are heavy, you assume the spin lifetime is short, explains Li.

“Most people in the field would not think that this material has a long spin lifetime. It’s surprising to us, too,” says Li. “We haven't found out the exact reason yet. But it's likely some intrinsic, magical property of the material itself.”

Spintronics: That Magnetic Moment When…

Cellphones, computers and other electronics have silicon transistors that control the flow of electrical currents like tiny dams. As devices get more compact, transistors must handle the electrical current in smaller and smaller areas.

“The silicon technology, based only on the electron charge, is reaching its size-limit,” says Li, “The size of the wire is already small. If gets any smaller, it’s not going to work in a classical way that you think of.”

“People were thinking, ‘How do we increase the amount of information in such a small area?’” adds Vardeny. “What do we do to overcome this limit?”

“Spintronics,” answers physics.

Spintronics uses the spin of the electron itself to carry information. Electrons are basically tiny magnets orbiting the nucleus of an element. Just like the Earth has its own orientation relative to the sun, electrons have their own spin orientation relative to the nucleus that can be aligned in two directions: “Up,” which represents a one, and “down,” which represents a zero. Physicists relate the electron’s “magnetic moment” to its spin.

By adding spin to traditional electronics, you can process exponentially more information than using them classically based on less or more charge.

“With spintronics, not only have you enormously more information, but you’re not limited by the size of the transistor. The limit in size will be the size of the magnetic moment that you can detect, which is much smaller than the size of the transistor nowadays,” says Vardeny.

The Experiment to Tune Electron Spin

Tuning an electron spin is like tuning a guitar, but with a laser and a lot of mirrors.

First, the researchers formed a thin film from the hybrid perovskite methyl-ammonium lead iodine (CH₃NH₃PbI₃) and placed it in front of an ultrafast laser that shoots very short light pulses 80 million times a second. The researchers are the first to use light to set the electron’s spin orientation and observe the spin precession in this material.

They split the laser into two beams; the first one hit the film to set the electron spin in the desired direction. The second beam bends through a series of mirrors like a pinball machine before hitting the perovskite film at increasing time intervals to measure how long the electron held the spin in the prepared direction.

They found that the perovskite has a surprisingly long spin lifetime — up to nanosecond. The spin flips many times during one nanosecond, which means a lot information can be easily stored and manipulated during that time.

Once they determined the long spin lifetime, the researchers tested how well they could manipulate the spin with a magnetic field.

“The spin is like the compass. The compass spins in this magnetic field perpendicular to that compass, and eventually it will stop spinning,” says Li. “Say you set the spin to ‘up,’ and you call that ‘one.’ When you expose it to the magnetic field, the spin changes direction. If it rotated 180 degrees, it changes from one to zero. If it rotated 360 degrees, it goes from one to one.”

They found that they could rotate the spin more than 10 turns by exposing the electron to different strengths of magnetic field.

The potential for this material is enormous, says Vardeny. It could process data faster and increase random-access memory.

“I’m telling you, it’s a miracle material,” says Vardeny.

Li and Vardeny conducted the research with first authors Patrick Odenthal and William Talmadge, Nathan Gundlach, Chuang Zhang and Dali Sun from the Department of Physics & Astronomy at the University of Utah; Zhi-Gang Yu of the ISP/ Applied Sciences Laboratory at Washington State University; and Ruizhi Wang, who is now at the School of Electronic and Optical Engineering at Nanjing University of Science and Technology.

The work was supported by a start-up grant from the University of Utah and the United States Department of Energy Office of Science grant DES0014579. The National Science Foundation Material Science and Engineering Center at the University of Utah (DMR-1121252) supported perovskite growth and facilities.

Read the full press release on the UNews website

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