New course "PHYS 422X/522X: Foundations of Quantum Computing" offered in Spring 2022

Named professorship awards for Robert McQueeney and Mayly Sanchez

Two of our faculty, Robert McQueeney and Mayly Sanchez, have been awarded named professorships at the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, which are among the most esteemed positions in academia.

DOE Early Career Award for Srimoyee Sen

Sen, an assistant professor of physics and astronomy, works in a field called quantum chromodynamics, which is all about the forces that hold quarks together, and therefore hold protons and neutrons together, and therefore hold everything together. Sen’s work in quantum materials has recently won support from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Early Career Research Program. She’s one of 83 scientists from American universities and DOE national laboratories selected for the award. She’ll receive about $150,000 per year for five years for salary and research expenses.

Read more at the press release.

Several new undergraduate courses available starting summer 2021.

Mayly Sanchez of ISU elected to Fellowship in the American Physical Society

Qiming Li and Xiaosha Graduate Scholarship for Excellent Research in Physics awarded to Chirag Vaswani

Qiming Li and Xiaosha Graduate Scholarship for Excellent Research in Physics is a new award at the Department of Physics and Astronomy. It is given to a graduate student for outstanding research performed at ISU as evidenced by the nominations of at least three faculty members and strong publication record among other requirements. The first recipient of this award is Chirag Viswani who is conducting his research under the supervision of Prof. Jigang Wang.

New course "PHYS 422X/522X: Foundations of Quantum Computing" offered in Spring 2021.

As interest in the transformative potential of quantum computing continues to grow, the Department of Physics and Astronomy is excited to introduce a new course, “PHYS 422X/ 522X: Foundations of Quantum Computing,” in the spring semester of 2021. The course is aimed at advanced undergraduate and beginning graduate students.

Zhe Fei, assistant professor of physics, received an NSF CAREER grant for a proposal titled “Exploring chiral edge plasmons in novel two-dimensional materials.”

Jigang Wang can break his research goals into just a few words: “To discover and control quantum states of matter.” But, it takes paragraphs, analogies, and a willingness to decipher talk about “non-equilibrium quantum phase discovery via non-thermal ultrafast quench near quantum critical points” to get a handle on those eight words. Even though it’s a head-scratcher, Wang’s work could be a big deal to all of us.

Jigang Wang explained his latest discovery in quantum control that could lead to superfast computing based on quantum mechanics: He mentioned light-induced superconductivity without energy gap.

Astronomers who study stars are providing a valuable assist to the planet-hunting astronomers pursuing the primary objective of NASA’s new TESS Mission.