Thomas Searles
Howard University, DC·Physics
Quantum technologies for communication, computing and sensing need materials whose key properties stay stable even when the material is deformed. Topological Dirac and Weyl semimetals are such materials.
- Fields
Physics
Materials Science
- Topics
topological semimetals
Dirac semimetals
Weyl semimetals
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through May 2029
What they work on
- Measure how reducing Dirac and Weyl semimetals from bulk crystals to single layers changes their optical response, using nonlinear optical spectroscopy from infrared to terahertz frequencies.
- Determine whether patterning topological semimetals into metasurfaces or hybrid metamaterials, structures engineered to shape light, enhances their optical properties.
- Test how applied DC, optical, terahertz and high magnetic fields and doping change semimetal optics, and whether these materials naturally act as infrared negative index materials.
- Develop and distribute a low-cost, long-duration pulsed magnetic field apparatus reaching 10 tesla to Howard and four partner HBCUs and integrate it into their physics curricula.
More about the research
Electrons in these materials behave in unusual ways, and those behaviors are protected by the material's underlying structure. This project asks how to strengthen the way these semimetals respond to light. The goal is to make them useful in fast, reliable, light-controlled electronic and photonic devices.
Why it matters
The work could inform faster, more durable quantum-enabled devices for communication, computing and sensing that are controlled by infrared and terahertz light. The low-cost pulsed magnet apparatus and course modules give students at Historically Black Colleges and Universities hands-on access to high magnetic field experiments.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Catalin Martin
Ramapo College of New Jersey, NJ·Physics
Probe for Weyl cones, the cone-shaped bands of massless electrons, in REAlX semimetals such as PrAlGe1-xSix, and map their extent, shape and position using low-temperature infrared spectroscopy from terahertz to ultraviolet.
Chunhui Du
Georgia Institute of Technology, GA·Physics·Early-career
Determine how spin spreads through antiferromagnetic insulators and how their alternating Néel order switches, by imaging local magnetic fields with nitrogen-vacancy defects in diamond.
Heike Pfau
Pennsylvania State University, PA·Physics·Early-career
Use uniaxial pressure cells to strain unconventional superconductors and measure their changing electronic structure with angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES), to uncover the interactions that cause electrons to pair.
The school
Howard University: 8 labs on PI Pages, $102M a year on research, 102 research doctorates a year.
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