Congratulations to Eryn Cangi, who was accepted to do research at Northwestern University’s Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics with Dr. Daniel Abrams. She will be working on applications of mathematical models of synchronicity to problems in orbital dynamics of exoplanet systems and other astrophysical systems.
Fellow Fehmi!
Congratulations to Fehmi Yasin, who was awarded NSF Graduate Research Fellowship.
Welcome to Gator Nation, Alex!
Congratulations to Alex Schachtner, who was accepted into the PhD program at University of Florida! He will begin as a Gator graduate student in Fall 2015.
Congratulations Tyler and Jordan!
Congratulations to Tyler Harvey and Jordan Pierce, who recently advanced to PhD candidacy! For their comprehensive exams, they successfully presented their respective research in our lab to a group of professors.
Employing Hermite Gaussian beams, well done Jordan!
Jordan Chess won a poster award at MMM for his poster titled Employing Hermite Gaussian beams to probe magnetic materials with atomic resolution.
Congratulations Alex!
Congratulations to Alex Schachtner, who was awarded NSF REU at University of Florida working in Prof. Andrew Rinzler’s group on Investigation of Solution Processed Channel Layer Materials in Carbon-Nanotube Enabled Vertical Field Effect Transistors.
Prof. McMorran receives DOE Early Career Award
It was announced this summer that I received a 2013 Early Career Award from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) for the proposal to develop “Electron Microscopy with Vortex Beams Carrying Orbital Angular Momentum”. I’m very honored and humbled to receive this award, as this was among only a handful of projects selected out of 770 highly competitive proposals submitted by young U.S. scientists. I’m also very excited by the research this enables.
The goal of this project is to develop new electron microscopy capabilities using electron vortex beams. Electron microscopy is one of the most widely used tools for studying energy-related materials at atomic lengthscales, yet the information that it can typically provide is limited by the types of physical interactions occurring between the electron beam and the sample. Electron vortex beams can interact with matter in new ways compared to conventional electron beams because they possess unique orbital, magnetic, and wave properties. The project investigates methods for using the electron vortex beam to directly probe magnetization and electronic orbital structure within materials. Methods are also explored for using these beams to enhance image contrast of carbon-based materials at the nanoscale. To accomplish these goals, the project advances a new technique of using nanofabricated electron optical structures to produce electron vortex beams inside existing microscopes.
This award will be used to provide access to the excellent CAMCOR user facility at the UO, and to help support lab members traveling to and working with collaborators at NIST’s Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology (CNST), the National Center for Electron Microscopy (NCEM) at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (LBNL), Oak Ridge National Lab’s Shared Research Equipment (ShaRE) User Facility, and other DOE national labs.
Physics Booth at the 2013 Oregon Country Fair
The Oregon Country Fair (OCF) is a 3-day festival in wooded farmland outside of Eugene that attracts artists, inventors, performers, musicians, artisans, and merchants. It’s sort of a mix between Burning Man, Coachella, Woodstock, and your local coffee shop, but in the shade and with an Oregon twist. There were people there of all ages, all political parties, all all ancestries, all sexual orientations, and all religions (ranging from New Age to Stone Age), from all across the country and world. We met old school hippies, ex-hippies, wannabe hippies, and hippie lovers, as well as Libertarians, farmers, cowboys, preppers, and survivalists. I got the distinct feeling that a lot of hermits in Oregon make this one of their few annual outings. But also lots of families, kids, and students. The one uniting quality amongst all these people was that they were generally all creative types. Suffice it say that this festival of creativity presents a golden opportunity to discuss physics and its relevance to these folks’ interests.
The UO Department of Physics booth resides in the OCF Energy Park. By entering the park, visitors have self-selected themselves as interested in alternative energies. Visitors to our booth could learn about the physical concepts at play in various energy conversion technologies.
McMorran Lab, Open for Business!
The group now has its own lab space in room 171 of Willamette Hall. Most of the group’s research has been and will continue to be performed using the excellent instrumentation in CAMCOR, the group’s lab can be used to for experiments requiring dedicated instruments.
