Publications
Tunable excitons in bilayer graphene
Excitons, the bound states of an electron and a hole in a solid material, play a key role in the optical properties of insulators and semiconductors. Here, we report the observation of excitons in bilayer graphene (BLG) using photocurrent spectroscopy of high-quality BLG encapsulated in hexagonal boron nitride. We observed two prominent excitonic resonances with narrow line widths that are tunable from the mid-infrared to the terahertz range.
Discovering Synthesis Routes to Hexagonally Ordered Mesoporous Niobium Nitrides Using Poloxamer/Pluronics Block Copolymers
Adsorption-controlled growth of La-doped BaSnO3 by molecular-beam epitaxy
Epitaxial La-doped BaSnO3 films were grown in an adsorption-controlled regime by molecular-beam epitaxy, where the excess volatile SnOx desorbs from the film surface. A film grown on a (001) DyScO3 substrate exhibited a mobility of 183 cm2 V-1 s-1 at room temperature and 400 cm2 V-1 s-1 at 10 K despite the high concentration (1.2 × 1011 cm-2) of threading dislocations present. In comparison to other reports, we observe a much lower concentration of (BaO)2 Ruddlesden-Popper crystallographic shear faults.
In vitro culture increases mechanical stability of human tissue engineered cartilage constructs by prevention of microscale scaffold buckling
Many studies have measured the global compressive properties of tissue engineered (TE) cartilage grown on porous scaffolds. Such scaffolds are known to exhibit strain softening due to local buckling under loading. As matrix is deposited onto these scaffolds, the global compressive properties increase. However the relationship between the amount and distribution of matrix in the scaffold and local buckling is unknown. To address this knowledge gap, we studied how local strain and construct buckling in human TE constructs changes over culture times and GAG content.
Lifetimes and spatio-temporal response of protein crystals in intense X-ray microbeams
Serial synchrotron-based crystallography using intense microfocused X-ray beams, fast-framing detectors and protein microcrystals held at 300 K promises to expand the range of accessible structural targets and to increase overall structure-pipeline throughputs. To explore the nature and consequences of X-ray radiation damage under microbeam illumination, the time-, dose- and temperature-dependent evolution of crystal diffraction have been measured with maximum dose rates of 50 MGy s-1.
Excited states using semistochastic heat-bath configuration interaction
We extend our recently developed heat-bath configuration interaction (HCI) algorithm, and our semistochastic algorithm for performing multireference perturbation theory, to calculate excited-state wavefunctions and energies. We employ time-reversal symmetry, which reduces the memory requirements by more than a factor of two. An extrapolation technique is introduced to reliably extrapolate HCI energies to the full CI limit.
Light microscopy at maximal precision
Microscopy is the workhorse of the physical and life sciences, producing crisp images of everything from atoms to cells well beyond the capabilities of the human eye. However, the analysis of these images is frequently little more accurate than manual marking. Here, we revolutionize the analysis of microscopy images, extracting all the useful information theoretically contained in a complex microscope image.
Stretchable surfaces with programmable 3D texture morphing for synthetic camouflaging skins
Technologies that use stretchable materials are increasingly important, yet we are unable to control how they stretch with much more sophistication than inflating balloons. Nature, however, demonstrates remarkable control of stretchable surfaces; for example, cephalopods can project hierarchical structures from their skin in milliseconds for a wide range of textural camouflage. Inspired by cephalopod muscular morphology, we developed synthetic tissue groupings that allowed programmable transformation of two-dimensional (2D) stretchable surfaces into target 3D shapes.
Designing solid-liquid interphases for sodium batteries
Secondary batteries based on earth-abundant sodium metal anodes are desirable for both stationary and portable electrical energy storage. Room-temperature sodium metal batteries are impractical today because morphological instability during recharge drives rough, dendritic electrodeposition. Chemical instability of liquid electrolytes also leads to premature cell failure as a result of parasitic reactions with the anode.
How confinement-induced structures alter the contribution of hydrodynamic and short-ranged repulsion forces to the viscosity of colloidal suspensions
Confined systems ranging from the atomic to the granular are ubiquitous in nature. Experiments and simulations of such atomic and granular systems have shown a complex relationship between the microstructural arrangements under confinement, the short-ranged particle stresses, and flow fields. Understanding the same correlation between structure and rheology in the colloidal regime is important due to the significance of such suspensions in industrial applications.