ICREA Research Prof. Sergio O. Valenzuela participates in the U.S. Nano Day celebration

by Super User

Prof. Valenzuela offers today a talk about Topological Insulators at the International Nanotechnology Conference on Communication and Cooperation.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) celebrate the U.S. Nano Day (May 13th) with the Tenth International Nanotechnology Conference on Communication and Cooperation (INC 10). The event is being held on their campus in Gaithersburg (USA) on May 13-15, with the participation of Prof. Sergio O. Valenzuela, ICREA Research Professor and Leader of the ICN2 Physics and Engineering of NanoDevices Group.

The INC vision is to foster international communication and cooperation on nanotechnology and particularly on nanoelectronics between industry, academic and government partners. On the other hand, the NIST campus includes some of the American premier measurement capabilities, as well as unique user facilities such as the Center for Neutron Research and the Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology.

Prof. Valenzuela, who after obtaining his PhD in Physics at the University of Buenos Aires (Argentina) was a Postdoctoral Fellow and Research Associate at Harvard University and a Research Scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), is an experimental physicist with a broad expertise on quantum manipulation and spintronics. He offers today a talk titled “Topological Insulators - Fundamentals and Perspectives” at the INC 10 event held in Gaithersburg.

Topological Insulators are materials which behave as insulators in their bulk, but that have protected conducting states at their boundaries. Notably, they can be predicted within the simple framework of the band theory of solids and more than fifty compounds have already been proposed. Topological Insulators arise due to the combination of spin-orbit interaction and time reversal symmetry and were first theoretically predicted and then experimentally discovered in twodimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) systems.

During his talk, the ICN2 ICREA Research Prof. Sergio O. Valenzuela will review the fundamentals of topological insulators and their exotic properties. He will describe recent experiments and the fundamental signatures that have already been observed. Prospects for potential device applications will also be discussed.

INC 10 Website: www.inc10.org