News – Page 4

Congrats to Kwabena Bediako for Receiving a Heising-Simons Faculty Fellowship

The Heising-Simons Faculty Fellows Program catalyzes scientific discovery by investing in high-risk, high-reward research directions. The Program supports exceptional faculty working on topics in a diverse set of fields, including astronomy, physics, geology and geophysics, materials sciences (in both physics and engineering), and physical and materials chemistry. Program awards will focus on creative and novel approaches that promise to lead to important scientific breakthroughs contributing to a greater understanding of the universe and its components, from the molecular and atomic to the geological and planetary scales, among other areas. Awards also fund the development of new tools, techniques and measurements that help probe these physical phenomena in new ways.

The Heising-Simons Faculty Fellows awards will be made to two UC Berkeley faculty members each year. Each $1M faculty award will be distributed over a period of five years. All early- and mid-career UC Berkeley faculty regardless of their home department are eligible to apply.

Prof. Bediako’s project is “Manipulating Electron Transfer with Twisted Interfaces”.

Congrats to Kwabena Bediako for Receiving an NSF Career Award

Kwabena Bediako, campus assistant chemistry professor, was awarded the National Science Foundation, or NSF, CAREER award for his ongoing research and outreach proposal.

The CAREER award is a five-year grant open to assistant professors who are fairly early on in their careers, Bediako noted. This grant will help him and his team continue their work with structural distortions in atomically thin materials, as stated in the NSF award abstract.

“With the solids that we work with, the layers can slide over each other, so it turns out that you can also control how they are twisted to each other,” Bediako said. “Even this twisting effect — the angle that you twist them at can significantly transform how the material behaves.”

Congrats to Jeremy Thurston for Receiving the Emil Wolf Outstanding Student Paper Award at Frontiers in Optics

Every year, the Frontiers in Optics conference holds the Emil Wolf Outstanding Student Paper Competition, acknowledging the excellence of students in presenting their work at the conference in both paper and poster form. This year, JILA graduate student Jeremy Thurston of the Murnane and Kapteyn research groups showcased his work in both a paper and presentation titled: “Bright Tunable Ultrafast Deep- and Vacuum-Ultraviolet Harmonic Combs,” which was awarded a prize by the judges for excellence in communication.

“I’m very honored to be selected by the FiO committee for this award and want to extend my congratulations to the many collaborators at JILA and KMLabs that contributed to this work,” stated Thurston about the award. Congratulations, Jeremy!

Congrats to Daniel Carlson for Receiving the Best Paper Award at Optica International Conference on Advanced Solid State Lasers

To honor students’ abilities for clear and effective communication in quantum physics, Optica offers a yearly “best paper” award at its International Conference on Advanced Solid State Lasers. This year, JILA graduate student Daniel Carlson was among the list of winners, with his presentation “Carbon K-Edge Soft X-Rays Driven by a 3 µm,1 kHz OPCPA Laser System” winning over the judges. Carlson, who is a researcher in JILA Fellows and University of Colorado Boulder professor Margaret Murnane and Henry Kapteyn, studies the creation of special X-rays using laser systems. Congratulations, Daniel!

Congrats to Drew Morrill for Receiving the Colorado Photonics Industry Association Poster Award

Drew Morrill’s poster, titled: “High-harmonic generation from a 3 μm wavelength OPCPA,” received an award from the Colorado Photonics Industry Association. The poster illustrates a method to generate soft X-rays using laser arrays. Congratulations, Drew!

Congrats to Dr. Rachael Merritt for Receiving an NSF Mathematical and Physical Sciences Ascending Postdoctoral Research Fellowship

The NSF Mathematical and Physical Sciences Ascending Postdoctoral Research Fellowships (MPS-Ascend) supports postdoctoral fellows performing impactful research in MPS fields while broadening the participation of groups that are underrepresented in the mathematical and physical sciences.

CU Students Become Solar Scientists

An unusual research project at the University of Colorado turned more than a thousand undergrad students into instant solar scientists.

Margaret Murnane is Awarded a Honorary Doctorate from the University of Salamanca

Renowned scientist, JILA Fellow, and University of Colorado Boulder professor Margaret Murnane has been granted an honorary doctorate from the prestigious University of Salamanca, recognizing her outstanding contributions to the field of ultrafast laser science. As a trailblazer in her field, Murnane’s groundbreaking research has revolutionized our understanding of light and opened up new avenues for scientific discovery and technological innovation. This esteemed recognition from one of the oldest universities in the world serves as a testament to Murnane’s remarkable achievements and lasting impact on the scientific community.

Turning Up the Heat in Quantum Materials

Quantum materials, a fascinating class of materials that harness the power of quantum mechanics, are revolutionizing modern science and technology. Quantum materials often possess exotic states of matter, such as superconductivity or magnetic ordering, that defy conventional understanding and can be manipulated for various technological applications. To further enhance and manipulate the intriguing characteristics of quantum materials, researchers leverage nanostructuring—the ability to precisely control the geometry on the atomic scale. Specifically, nanostructuring provides the ability to manipulate and fine-tune the electrical and thermal properties of quantum and other materials. This can result, for example, in designer structures that conduct current very well, but impede heat transport. These structures can help recapture and utilize waste heat in electronics, buildings, and vehicles—enhancing their efficiency and, thereby, reducing power consumption. A related critical challenge for a broad range of nanotechnologies is the need for more efficient cooling, so that the nano devices do not overheat during operation. To better understand heat transport at the nanoscale, JILA Fellows Margaret Murnane, Henry Kapteyn, and their research groups within the STROBE NSF Center, JILA and the University of Colorado Boulder, created the first general analytical theory of nanoscale-confined heat transport, that can be used to engineer heat transport in 3D nanosystems—such as nanowires and nanomeshes—that are of great interest for next-generation energy-efficient devices. This discovery was published in NanoLetters.

Congratulations to Nathan Brooks on a Postdoctoral Fellowship, Academia Sinica, Taiwan

Congratulations to Nathan Brooks for receiving a Postdoctoral Fellowship from Academia Sinica in Taiwan!