Harvard University Department of Physics

Harvard Physics grad student Peter Lu, Prof. David Weitz, and colleagues from University of Rome and University of Edinbourgh published a letter in Nature, in which they reported on their study demonstrating that gelation of short-ranged attractive particles is driven by phase separation: P.J. Lu, E. Zaccarelli, F. Ciulla, A.B. Schofield, F. Sciortino, & D.A. Weitz, Nature 453, 499-503 (22 May 2008) | doi:10.1038/nature06931.

at a ceremony in Madrid on April 22, 2008. It is the highest award of Spain's new Ministry of Science.

in recognition of her "distinguished and continuing achievements in original research".

The Center created the Environmental Fellows program to enable recent doctorate recipients to use and expand Harvard's extraordinary resources to tackle complex environmental problems.

The goal of this meeting is to provide an informal and supportive forum for discussing research on quantum systems: strongly correlated systems, atomic and optical systems, and mesoscopics.

The honor will be conferred by the Austrian Minister of Science and Research at his office at the Ministry on June 23, 2008.

by achieving a remarkable 22.39 percent reduction in energy use in Jefferson and Lyman Laboratories. Read the Gazette article of Apr. 17, 2008.

Participants: CUA (Harvard and MIT), ITAMP, Yale, University of Connecticut and Boston University.
Location: Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA. For schedule, please consult the Poster.

This Symposium is sponsored by the PhD Track in Engineering and Physical Biology and marks a milestone for the EPB project. It comprises the first half of an "EPB day" designed to bring students from the EPB program together with outstanding visiting scholars as well as faculty from its constituent parts (MCB, Physics and SEAS).

The day will be divided into two parts. The morning (until 1:00pm) will be a public symposium featuring four visiting faculty. Everyone in the Harvard community is welcome to attend, and the talks should be of wide general interest. The afternoon will feature 10-minute presentations by each EPB graduate student, in a more intimate and informal setting that provides an opportunity for contact and exchange of ideas between students and faculty outside of (as well as within) the University. These sessions will not be open to the general public.

For more information on the Symposium, please see the Poster and contact Julia Blackbourn (juliab[at]mcb.harvard.edu).

Researchers in Dr. Ronald Walsworth's group, together with colleagues from MIT, reported the fabrication of a wide-line-spacing comb, or "astro-comb", which should allow highly precise measurements of astronomical radial velocity.
Read their letter in Nature: Li, C.-H., A.J. Benedick, P. Fende, A.G. Glenday, F.X. Kärtner, D.F. Phillips, D. Sasselov, A. Szentgyorgyi, & R. L. Walsworth, "A laser frequency comb that enables radial velocity measurements with a precision of 1 cm s-1" (Nature 452, 3 April 2008 | doi:10.1038/nature06854). Read also "Extrasolar planets: With a coarse-tooth comb" by G. Walker in "News and Views" (ibid, 538-539 | doi:10.1038/452538a) and the Press release on the Harvard Science website.

Prof. Eric Mazur has been elected a fellow of the Optical Society of America (OSA) in recognition of his "pioneering contributions to optical waveguiding at the nanoscale level and to understanding the interaction of ultrashort laser pulses with materials." He also received OSA's Esther Hoffman Beller Medal for "developing and globally disseminating the innovative teaching methodology now known as "Peer Instruction", which promotes deeper understanding of the fundamentals of science".

In addition, the American Association of Physics Teachers awarded Prof. Mazur the Robert A. Millikan Medal, which recognizes "those who have made outstanding scholarly contributions to physics education".

The prize, awarded by Tel Aviv University in the fields of physics and chemistry, is intended "to encourage dedication to science, originality and excellence by rewarding outstanding young scientists.

Harvard University, February 29 - March 1, 2008. For more information, please consult the Symposium website and read the Gazette article.

The Summit and Conference bring together over 500 African American and Hispanic American physics students and professionals. This conference has a cutting-edge scientific program as well as a student professional development program that includes mentor-protege match-making and a recruiting fair.

Professors Mikhail Lukin and Eugene Demler with colleagues from Johannes Gutenberg-Universität, Technische Universität Kaiserslautern, Harvard-Smithsonian Center of Astrophysics, and Boston University, published a research article in Science: S. Trotzky, P. Cheinet, S. Fölling, M. Feld, U. Schnorrberger, A.M. Rey, A. Polkovnikov, E.A. Demler, M.D. Lukin, I. Bloch, "Time-Resolved Observation and Control of Superexchange Interactions with Ultracold Atoms in Optical Lattices". (Science 319, 18 Jan 2008 | DOI: 10.1126/science.1150841)

Prof. Mara Prentiss and grad student Ephraim Feinstein, together with colleagues from colleagues from Harvard Medical School and University of California, Berkeley, published a letter in Nature Nanotechnology which describes a magnetic nanotechnology that activates a biochemical signalling mechanism normally switched on by binding of multivalent chemical ligands. This technique may represent a new actuator mechanism for cell-based microtechnologies and man-machine interfaces. (see R.J. Mannix, S. Kumar, F. Cassiola, M. Montoya-Zavala, E. Feinstein, M. Prentiss & D.E. Ingber, Nature Nanotechnology 3, 23 December 2007 | doi:10.1038/nnano.2007.418)

Prof. David A. Weitz and colleagues Peter Schall (U Amsterdam) and Frans Spaepen (SEAS) published a report in Science, in which they describe their use of a colloidal glass to obtain direct three-dimensional images of thermally induced structural rearrangements in the presence of an applied shear. (Science 318, 21 December 2007 | DOI: 10.1126/science.1149308).

In this experiment, Prof. Hau - with graduate student Naomi Ginsberg and post doctoral fellow Sean Garner - extinguished a slow light pulse in one Bose-Einstein condensate, then subsequently revived it from a totally different condensate, 160 microns away. For more information, please consult Prof. Hau's website.

Professors Amir Yacoby and Bertrand Halperin with coleagues from the Weizmann Institute, Bell Labs, and Yale University, published a letter in Nature Physics in which they describe the first experimental evidence for charge fractionalization in one dimension. Hadar Steinberg, Gilad Barak, Amir Yacoby, L.N. Pfeiffer, K.W. West, B.I. Halperin & K. Le Hur, Nature Physics 4, 116 - 119 (2008) Published online: 16 December 2007 | doi:10.1038/nphys810.

The Bok Center Players present an interactive-theatre short play "Trouble in the Lab",  followed by a Physics & SEAS Faculty Panel addressing "What I Wish I'd Known as a Graduate Student" and then an informal reception.  Maxwell Dworkin 119,  2:30-5:30pm.  See the poster!

"for [his] numerous outstanding contributions to statistical physics and condensed matter theory, especially dynamical critical phenomena and low dimensional electronic properties".

Researchers Alexey Akimov, Aryesh Mukherjee, and Alexander Zibrov, grad students Darrick Chang, professors Hongkun Park and Mikhail Lukin, together with colleagues from Harvard Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology and from Texas A&M University, published a letter in Nature, in which they demonstrated a cavity-free, broadband approach for engineering photon-emitter interactions via subwavelength confinement of optical fields near metallic nanostructures. (A.V. Akimov, A. Mukherjee, L. Yu, D.E. Chang, A.S. Zibrov, P.R. Hemmer, H. Park, & M.D. Lukin, Nature 450, 15 Nov 2007 | doi:10.1038/nature06230)

"for his pioneering work in the history of physics, especially on Einstein and relativity. His writing, lecturing, and leadership of major educational projects introduced the history of physics to a mass audience". The prize is given annually by APS in recognition of outstanding scholarly achievements in the history of physics. It is open to scholars world-wide and consist of $10,000.

Prof. Amir Yacoby and colleagues from the Weizmann Institute and Max-Planck-Institut für Festkörperforschung published an article in Nature Physics, in which they describe their use of scanning single-electron transistor to observe electron–hole puddles in graphene. J. Martin, N. Akerman, G. Ulbricht, T. Lohmann, J. H. Smet, K. von Klitzing & A. Yacoby. Nature Physics 4, 144 - 148 (2008) (Published online: 25 November 2007) | doi:10.1038/nphys781

Congratulations to graduate students Jacob Barandes, David Hoogerheide, Real Esteban, Mason Klein and David Patterson for receiving Spring 2007 Certificates of Distinction for Excellence in Teaching from the Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning. The certificates are awarded to section leaders who scored 4.5 or higher on the CUE evaluations by their students.

Prof. Xiaowei Zhuang and colleagues from SEAS, Harvard Medical School and Chemistry Department reported on their new technique for multicolor imaging of DNA samples with 20- to 30-nanometer resolution. This technique will facilitate direct visualization of molecular interactions at the nanometer scale. (Read the report by Mark Bates, Bo Huang, Graham T. Dempsey, and Xiaowei Zhuang in Science 317, Sept 2007 | doi:10.1126/science.1146598)

Prof. Christopher Stubbs, a member of the High-z Supernova Search team lead by Brian Schmidt (Australian National University), was one of the recipients of the 2007 Gruber Cosmology Prize for the discovery that the universe's expansion is accelerating. The team received the award jointly with the Supernova Cosmology Project, lead by Saul Perlmutter of UC Berkeley, at a ceremony in Cambridge (UK) on Sept. 7, 2007. The official citation stressed that "the discovery of the accelerated expansion has radically changed our perception of cosmic evolution". Read the press releases from the Gruber Foundation and from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

Research on the physics of "warm ice" by graduate student Alexander Wissner-Gross and Prof. Efthimios Kaxiras is featured in New Scientist ("Warm ice layer could make implants biocompatible" by B. Dumé, Sept. 4, 2007). Their short film on the effect, Song of Diamond and Ice, was named a Finalist in the 2006 Materials Research Film Festival. Read also the Harvard Gazette article: "'Hot' ice could lead to medical device" by Alvin Powell (Gazette Online, Sept. 20, 2007)

Graduate student Ben Campbell Smith has developed an algorithm that will dramatically slash the time it takes to sort and catalog billions of genome sequences from the Joint Genome Institute and other research centers. ("Genome Matchmaker", CRD Report, Aug 2007.)

Prof. Robert Westervelt and colleagues from Yale, Delft University of Technology and Philips Research Laboratories obtained detailed images of electron flow in a nanowire using a scanning probe microscope. Read a report in Nature Nanotechnology: "Nanowires: Joining the dots" by Tim Reid (published online 24 Aug 2007), as well as the original article: A.C. Bleszynski, F.A. Zwanenburg, R. M. Westervelt, A.L. Roest, E.P.A.M. Bakkers, and L.P. Kouwenhoven, "Scanned probe imaging of quantum dots inside InAs nanowires", Nano Letters (web release: 11 Aug 2007).