Research project 1
Creating a 2D magnetic semiconductor-based quantum transducer.
My recent work demonstrated the first instance of magnon-exciton coupling in a magnetic semiconductor [1]. This coupling is particularly exciting because exciton-coupled magnon may directly couple to a superconducting qubit with electric dipole moments. Conventional magnonic materials only have magnetic dipoles and require a bulky microwave cavity to couple to superconducting qubits. The research question is can we use exciton-coupled magnons to achieve direct coupling to qubits?
[1] Bae et al., Nature, 609, 282-286.
Research project 2
Investigating spin-phonon, magnon, and exciton interactions to dynamically drive magnetic phase transitions.
When we think of magnetic phase transitions, we think about changing spin interactions using external knobs such as temperature, pressure and/or magnetic field. At the critical temperature, spins are fluctuating between order and disorder and their free energy landscape is rather flat. Our hypothesis is that we can use the materials’ intrinsic spin interactions with other quasiparticles to dynamically induce and control magnetic phase transitions.
Research project 3
Symmetry breaking as a design principle to achieve precise spatial and temporal control over magnetic switching.
Spin-orbit coupling in materials allows a flow of angular momentum from lattice to spins. Changing the symmetry of orbital-orbital interactions in a lattice can create anisotropy in this transfer of angular momentum. Our research goal is to use symmetry breaking as a way to generate directional spin-orbit torque to induce spatially and temporally varying magnetization. We can use this framework to create a new architecture for information processors.
We will develop various pump-probe time domain spectroscopy tools including but not limited to pulsed RF excitation and optical probe and pulsed optical excitation and microwave probe. We will also build frequency domain spectroscopy, Brillouin light scattering, to study the low energy modes like magnons and phonons. We will also employ imaging capability for both time and frequency-domain spectroscopy tools.
Spectroscopic tools