2024 Misel Family Lecture: Professor Pablo Jarillo-Herrero, MIT

The William I. Fine Theoretical Physics Institute is proud to host the 17th Annual Misel Family Lecture. This lecture is FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC. Questions? Please contact us at ftpi@umn.edu or 612-625-6055. We look forward to seeing you there!

"Magic Angle Graphene: the Twist and Shout of Quantum Materials"

Wednesday, September 18, 2024 at 7:00 p.m.

McNamara Alumni Center, Memorial Hall

The discovery 20 years ago of the first truly 2-dimensional, one atom-thick material, graphene, has revolutionized physics and materials science, and led to numerous important applications. For example, scientists quickly realized that new heterostructures sandwiching various 2D materials could be created, and that these exhibited pretty unique phenomena. In the past few years, physicists have been able to create captivating atomic structures by stacking and controllably twisting layers of graphene and other 2D materials. These are called moiré patterns, named after a 17^th century silk production technique. These atomic moiré structures took the material’s design to a qualitatively new level. The moiré materials appear to exhibit a plethora of novel phenomena, such as unconventional superconductivity and magnetism, ferroelectricity, and much more. In this talk I will review the discovery and physics of graphene and explain the principles and beauty of moiré materials. I will also provide a broad outlook of some exciting new directions and practical applications of this emerging field.

"Next Generation Moiré Quantum Matter"

Thursday, September 19, 2024 at 3:35 p.m.

John T. Tate Hall room B50

Physics and Astronomy Colloquium

The understanding of strongly-interacting quantum matter has challenged physicists for decades. The discovery six years ago of correlated phases and superconductivity in magic angle twisted bilayer graphene has led to the emergence of a new materials platform to investigate strongly interacting physics, namely moiré quantum matter. In this talk I will review recent experiments on next generation moiré quantum matter, both twisted multilayer graphene systems as well as dual (or asymmetric) moiré systems. In particular, first I will briefly discuss our experiments on magic-angle twisted multilayer graphene as a family of robust moiré superconductors. Second, I will discuss the engineering of moiré quasicrystals and a new type of unconventional ferroelectricity and electron ratchet in asymmetric moiré systems.

Can't make it to the Public lecture? Stream the lecture on YouTube.

Please register through the UMN Events Calendar (registration is encouraged but not required).

Read more about Professor Jarillo-Herrero on his research group's webpage or watch one of his previous lectures on YouTube.