COLLOQUIUM 2025
Magic Angle Graphene: the Twist and Shout of Quantum Materials
| Speaker | Distinguished visitor Prof Pablo Jarillo-Herrero, Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| Date/Time | Wednesday, 9 July, 4PM |
| Location | Lecture Theatre 31 |
| Moderator | Asst/Prof Anjan Soumyanarayanan |
Abstract
The discovery 20 years ago of the first truly 2-dimensional, one atom-thick material, graphene, has revolutionized physics and materials science, and led to numerous important applications. Moreover, scientists quickly realized that new heterostructures sandwiching various 2D materials could be created, and that these exhibited pretty unique phenomena. In the past few years, physicists have been able to create captivating atomic structures by stacking and controllably twisting layers of graphene and other 2D materials. These are called moiré patterns, named after a 17th century silk production technique. These atomic moiré structures took the material’s design to a qualitatively new level. The moiré materials appear to exhibit a plethora of novel phenomena, such as unconventional superconductivity and magnetism, ferroelectricity, and much more. In this talk I will review the discovery and physics of graphene and explain the principles and beauty of moiré materials. I will also provide a broad outlook of some exciting new directions and practical applications of this emerging field.
Biography
Pablo Jarillo-Herrero is currently Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Physics at MIT. He received his “Licenciatura” in physics from the University of Valencia, Spain, in 1999, and his PhD in physics from Delft University of Technology in The Netherlands in 2005. After his postdoc at Columbia University, he joined MIT as an assistant professor of physics in January 2008 and received tenure in 2015. He was promoted to Full Professor of Physics in 2018.
Prof. Jarillo-Herrero is the recipient of the APS 2020 Oliver E. Buckley Condensed Matter Physics Prize, the 2020 Wolf Prize in Physics, the 2020 Medal of the Spanish Royal Physics Society, the 2021 Lise Meitner Distinguished Lecture and Medal, the 2021 Max Planck Humboldt Research Award, the 2021 US National Academy of Sciences Award for Scientific Discovery, the 2022 Dan Maydan Prize in Nanoscience Research, and the 2023 Ramon y Cajal Medal from the Royal Spanish Academy of Sciences. He is a member of the US National Academy of Sciences (2022), the Spanish Royal Academy of Sciences (2023), and the European Academy of Sciences (2025). Professor Jarillo-Herrero’s research interests lie in the area of experimental condensed matter physics.
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Graduate Seminar in this series
| Thursday 10 Jul 11AM | The Magic of Moiré Quantum Matter |
| Friday 11 Jul 11AM | Next Generation Moiré Quantum Matter |