Department Homepage
The College of Arts & Sciences
Arthur Ashkin, Ph.D. ’52, who won the Nobel Prize in physics in 2018 for pioneering “optical tweezers” that use laser light to capture and manipulate microscopic particles, died Sept. 21 at his home in Rumson, N.J. He was 98.
Internationally renowned physicist, human rights champion and Soviet-era dissident Yuri Orlov, professor emeritus of physics in the College of Arts and Sciences (A&S), died Sept. 27 in Ithaca. He was 96.
“This experiment really shows the possibility of this new type of superconductor that we had never thought about before.”
The superfluid helium-3 has many notable qualities. With its low mass and small atomic size, it remains in a liquid state – and when it transforms to the superfluid state, flowing without resistance – down to absolute zero, or minus 459.67 degrees Fahrenheit. It is a pure system, without any disorder. And it is full of surprises.
The College is able to bestow these honors to outstanding faculty thanks to generous gifts from alumni, parents and friends.
The COVID-19 pandemic halted plans to host annual on-campus summer research experiences for undergraduates from institutions across the U.S. and Puerto Rico. Cornell faculty, postdoctoral scholars, and graduate student mentors, however, quickly pulled together to shift course and move these programs online, allowing about 90 undergraduates to experience virtual research at Cornell.
These walking robots, roughly the size of a paramecium, can be mass produced, and may someday travel through human tissue and blood.
The National Science Foundation has renewed its funding for the Cornell NanoScale Science and Technology Facility (CNF), with a five-year, $7.5 million grant to continue supporting academic and commercial research in nanofabrication – the design and manufacture of devices measured in nanometers.
Ivan Bazarov, who uses the Cornell Electron Storage Ring to manipulate bright particle beams, pushes boundaries to make new physics discoveries.
As with actors and opera singers, when measuring magnetic fields it helps to have range. Cornell researchers used an ultrathin graphene “sandwich” to create a tiny magnetic field sensor that can operate over a greater temperature range than previous sensors, while also detecting miniscule changes in magnetic fields that might otherwise get lost within a larger magnetic background.
The three-year fellowships are available to early-career scholars conducting leading-edge research in any of the College’s discipline areas.
Peter McMahon, assistant professor of applied and engineering physics in the College of Engineering, and Brad Ramshaw, the Dick & Dale Reis Johnson Assistant Professor of Physics in the College of Arts and Sciences, have been named CIFAR Azrieli Global Scholars.
The electrons in quantum materials strongly interact and influence one another’s behavior. In addition, some materials have significant spin-orbit coupling, in which electrons’ spins are coupled with their own orbital momenta. Researchers predict that spin-orbit coupling will generate exotic forms of cooperative electron ordering that should alter the material’s crystal structure.
The chaotic behavior of Planckian, or “strange,” metals has long intrigued physicists.
Name and title: Chaoming Jian, Assistant Professor, Physics Academic focus: Theoretical condensed matter physics Current research project:
Physicist combines visual arts background with ground-breaking material.
Hundreds of students have just completed new courses in the College of Arts and Sciences’ Active Learning Initiative (ALI), part of a strategic effort by the college to embrace engaged learning models and emerging technologies. The ALI five-year pilot project is funded by Alex and Laura Hanson, both Class of 1987.
Margaret Zientek, one of nine PhD students from Cornell working at the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland, is featured in this story about women making their way in this male-dominated environment.“I am working on a search for dark matter particles,” she says
Roger Michaelides '15
The National Science Foundation has selected the Cornell NanoScale Science and Technology Facility (CNF) to be part of the newly established National Nanotechnology Coordinated Infrastructure (NNCI). Cornell will receive $8 million from the federal agency over five years.