Brad Ramshaw
Associate Professor
Our lab designs and builds unique experiments to probe the fundamental properties of quantum materials—systems that exhibit non-trivial quantum phenomena. Current research topics include searching for topological superconductors, exploring “Planckian” dissipation and the strange metal phase of high-Tc superconductors, probing electron and phonon interactions in the hydrodynamic limit, and developing new techniques to look for gapless excitations in quantum spin liquids. On the measurement side, we specialize in taking “traditional” techniques, like ultrasound and electrical and thermal transport, and making them smaller and faster using modern high-speed electronics and micro and nanofabrication techniques. This allows us to access physics in new regimes such as extremely high magnetic fields – up to 100 tesla.
Research
Every quantum material is its own universe, with its own laws of physics and its own emergent properties. Our job is to figure out those laws and to tweak them to get the properties that we want. Superconductivity is a great example of this: electrons in space repel each other due to Coulomb’s law but in a metal, electrons can attract each other. This attraction leads to superconductivity and zero electrical resistance. If we can figure out why they attract each other, and how to make that attraction stronger, we could have a superconductivity that works at room temperature.
Our lab has a 20 tesla DC magnet system, a 35 tesla pulsed magnet system, and we use fields up to 100 tesla available at user facilities around the world. Below are just a few examples of the projects we are working on, and the techniques we currently use and are developing.
Awards and Honors
- Lee Osheroff Richardson Science Prize, 2017
- Member, American Physical Society
- Kavli Fellow
- Alfred P. Sloan Fellow
- CIFAR Azrieli Global Scholar
- Postdoctoral Publication Prize in Actinide Science, Los Alamos National Labs, 2016
- Postdoctoral Publication Prize in Experimental Sciences, Los Alamos National Labs, 2015
- Director’s Fellow Postdoctoral Researcher, Los Alamos National Labs, 2013
- Postdoc Poster Award, Los Alamos National Labs, 2013
- Martin and Beate Block Physics Award, Aspen Winter Conference, 2011
- Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council Post-Graduate Scholarship - Doctorate, 2010
Educational Background
- Associate Professor, Physics, Cornell University, 2023-present
- Dick & Dale Reis Johnson Assistant Professor, Physics, Cornell University, 2017-2023
- Staff Scientist, Los Alamos National Labs, National High Magnetic Field Lab, 2015-2016
- Postdoctoral Researcher, Los Alamos National Labs, National High Magnetic Field Lab, 2012-2015
- Ph.D. in Physics, University of British Columbia, 2012
- B.Sc. (Hons.) in Physics and Computer Science, University of British Columbia, 2007
