$5M grant awarded to Mitchell Luskin and worldwide collaborators

May 3, 2022 — The Simons Foundation has awarded a $5 million grant for the project “Moiré Materials Magic” to a team of collaborating researchers, including School of Mathematics Professor Mitchell Luskin.

The project centers on mathematical analysis and computational methods to model phenomena such as superconductivity realized when 2D crystals with a small difference in lattice constant or orientation are overlaid, resulting in a moiré pattern.  

If the two-dimensional crystals are semiconductors or semimetals, the resulting material is described by effective quantum models that have the much larger periodicity of the moiré pattern. Such moiré materials may potentially realize new fundamental physics as well as find valuable applications. 

a moiré pattern
A moiré pattern

In addition to Prof. Luskin, the project team includes Alan MacDonald, University of Texas at Austin; Eric Cances, École des Ponts ParisTech; Svetlana Jitomirskaya, University of California, Irvine; Efthimios Kaxiras, Harvard University; Lin Lin, University of California, Berkeley; Angel Rubio, Max Planck Institute/Flatiron Institute; and Maciej Zworski, University of California, Berkeley.

About the project

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