Department News

Professor Robert Beichner Wins North Carolina Professor of the Year Award. - 2009.11.19
The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education has announced that Physics Professor Robert Beichner is the 2009 Professor of the Year for North Carolina. The principal developer of SCALE-UP, an innovative method of classroom instruction, Professor Beichner has won several other teaching awards including being named the 2009-2010 Outstanding Undergraduate Science Teacher by the Society for College Science Teachers and the National Science Teachers Association.

This story can be seen on the NCSU Homepage - here is the permanent link.

Please visit the SCALE-UP site as well as the Physics Education Research Group's site for more information on Professor Beichner's work.

Lazzati animation appears on Nature website - 2009.11.19
A three dimensional video animation of a gamma ray burst explosion, produced by NC State Physics Professor Davide Lazzati, appears on the website of the magazine Nature. This movie is from a hydrodynamical simulation generated by Professor Lazzati of a relativistic jet of gamma rays propagating through a massive compact progenitor star.

The movies can be seen here at Professor Lazzati's website.

The Fourth Annual Dale E. Sayers Lecture will be held November 16th, 2009 - 2009.11.05
The Sayers Lecture Series is an annual event highlighting research based on research or techniques pioneered by Professor Sayers throughout his career.

This year's lecture speaker is Dr. Stephen Hugdens of Santa Clara University. He will be lecturing on Phase-change memory (PCM), which is now being actively developed by many semiconductor device manufacturers. His talk will describe the current understanding of PCM devices and the progress toward commercialization of this new nonvolatile memory technology.

Dr. Hudgens received his Ph.D in solid-state physics from The University of Chicago and was postdoctoral research fellow at MIT. Now on the Physics Department faculty at Santa Clara University, Dr. Hudgens spent many years directing basic and applied research at Energy Conversion Devices and - more recently - at Ovonyx Incorporated. In addition to his academic position, he is currently a consultant for several corporations based in silicon valley. His interests center on solar energy conversion and computer phase change memory applications.

Here is a flier for this year's lecture

The NC State University Office of Undergraduate Research award research grants to nine Physics majors. - 2009.10.30
The names of those students, their faculty research mentor, and the title of their research proposal are:

• Adam Keith (Karen Daniels)
  Local Measurement of Granular Size Segregation Rates
• Erik Skau (Laura Clarke)
  Engineering Omniphobic Surfaces from Beaded Nanofibers
• Barak Schmookler (Paul Huffman)
  Isotopic Purification of 4-He using Cryogenic Techniques
• Mary Burkey (Steve Reynolds)
  An Analysis of the Circumstellar Medium in Kepler?s SNR
• Kevin Barkett (John Blondin)
  Measuring Calcium Spectrum from Supernova in Circumstellar Medium
• Kate Foco (Karen Daniels)
  Effects of Particle Shape on Granular Stick-Slip Events
• Andrew Hewitt (Dan Dougherty)
  Carrier Injection in Organic Semiconductor Spin Valve Materials
• Christopher Blackwell (Davide Lazzati)
  Gamma Ray Burst Afterglow Light curves with X-Ray Flaring Activity
• Hamilton Whittle (Chueng Ji)
  Neutrino Flavor Mixing Modeled by Quantum Oscillation

Professor Thomas Schaefer describes Nearly Perfect Fluidity on American Physical Society (APS) website - 2009.10.28
The APS website that spotlights exceptional research published an article on Nearly Perfect Fluidity written by NC State Physics Professor Thomas Schaefer. The APS invited Professor Schaefer to address the question of whether there is a fundamental bound on viscosity on its website. In the article, Schaefer – who is one of the world’s experts in this field – theoretically examines the coldest and hottest fluids that laboratories are able to produce. Schaefer’s article ends with a hope that data from the Large Hadron Collider at CERN will produce high temperatures in a quark-gluon plasma that will shed further light on whether hydrodynamics is still applicable at the highest temperatures experimentally obtainable.

Hamilton Whittle, Physics major, is awarded undergraduate research grant - 2009.10.28
The Office of Undergraduate Research announced that NC State Physics major Hamilton Whittle has been awarded a grant to study Neutrino Flavor Mixing Modeled by Quantum Oscillations. Working with Professor Chueng Ji, Hamilton plans to compare several models of flavor mixing in an attempt to describe neutrino oscillations in terms of quantum field theory. In addition he will examine how the mass of a neutrino can affect the oscillation and thus how the standard model must be revised.

National Academy of Sciences publishes Thomas memoir - 2009.09.30
The National Academy of Sciences has published a biographical memoir of late NC State Physics Professor L.H. Thomas that was written by Academy member John David Jackson. Professor Thomas joined the department in 1968 and remained active until his retirement in 1976. The department hosts a distinguished lecture series in his honor

Friction, force chains, and falling fruit - 2009.09.23
NCSU Physics Professor Jacqueline Krim, collaborating with Duke University professor Rober Behringer, have done a study published in Physics today titled "Friction, force chains, and falling fruit" on Friction and granular materials. The study also contains several YouTube videos demonstrating the phenomena.

NSF Spintronics Grant Will Help NC State Researchers Develop Smaller, Faster Electronic Devices - 2009.09.17
Researchers at North Carolina State University have received a three-year, $1.2 million grant from the National Science Foundation's Center for Chemical Innovation (NSF-CCI) to pursue research in the emerging field of molecular spintronics. The grant will fund a center for molecular spintronics at NC State and support a research coalition between scientists at NC State and UNC-Chapel Hill with the aim of using this technology to develop smaller, faster, more energy-efficient electronic devices with increased storage capability.

Dr. David Shultz, professor of chemistry, is the principal investigator. NC State co-PIs include Drs. Dan Dougherty, Marco Buongiorno-Nardelli, Jack Rowe (physics), Joe Tracy (materials science and engineering) and Gail Jones (math, science and technology education). The grant is one of four awarded nationally by the NSF.

Molecular spintronics refers to the use of designed molecules containing electrons that are not involved in chemical bonds. These electrons have small magnetic fields which can then be utilized to power electronic devices with more memory storage capability, faster operation and lower energy usage.

"This is a combination of materials science and chemistry that goes beyond mere nanotechnology," Shultz says, "and that has the advantage of taking the field of electronics beyond the current limitations we have when working with materials like silicon."

The grant also allows the research team to focus on outreach and training for a new generation of scientists specializing in this technology by providing funding for graduate courses and other educational activities.

"It is an effort not only to use designed molecules to build new devices, but also to train future researchers and workers who can bring this technology into the world and marketplace," Buongiorno-Nardelli says.

This article was posted on NCSU's NEWSROOM on September 16, 2009

Professor Robert Beichner to give a keynote lecture at International Conference - 2009.09.03
Professor Robert Beichner is giving a keynote lecture on the SCALE-UP (Student Centered Active Learning Environment for Undergraduate Programs) Project at the International Conference on Physics Teaching in Engineering Education, 10-12 September, in Wroclaw Poland. . SCALE-UP has been adopted at more than 80 universities across the US and has a growing international presence. For more information visit the project website.

Center for Molecular Spintronics Funded - 2009.08.28
The Center for Molecular Spintronics seeks to reveal the fundamental principles underlying the optimal use of organic molecules for spin transport and manipulation through new synthesis, advanced characterization, and state-of-the-art modeling. These principles will drive the development of a new generation of low cost, low power, high performance spin-dependent device applications. The center is committed to pursuing these developments in close concert with industrial partners, science educators, and the general public to ensure wide-reaching impacts. The eight principal investigators are Marco Buongiorno-Nardelli, Dan Dougherty, Jack Rowe (all from NCSU Physics), Gail Jones (NCSU Math, Science and Technology Education), David Shultz (PI, NCSU Chemistry), Joe Tracy (NCSU Materials Science and Engineering), Frank Tsui (UNC-CH Physics) and Wei You (UNC-CH Chemistry). The grant is for Phase I funding at $1.5 million over 3 years.

Physics Faculty top list of NC State "Highly Cited" authors - 2009.08.04
On the July 2009 listing of career citations compiled by the Web of Science, thirteen NC State faculty members are recognized as being among the nation's most highly cited. The top two on the NC State list of thirteen are on the Physics Department Faculty. David Aspnes (with 18,697) and Gerry Lucovsky (with 16,031) easily out pace others with the third most-cited author having fewer than 15,000 citations. The average number of citations among the other eleven authors is 5,000. This measure of overall productivity recognizes the value placed on contributions in the literature by researchers in their respective fields. The listing clearly identifies the work of Professor Aspnes and Lucovsky as being among the most important contributions to the scientific literature made by NC State faculty. Information is available on the ISI WEb of Knowledge HIGHLY Cited page.

NCSU Physics Professor Chueng-Ryong Ji Chairs UKC2009 - 2009.07.17
On July 16-19, the Raleigh Convention Center welcomes participants of UKC2009, the US-Korea Conference on Science, Technology and Entrepreneurship. Conference Chair, Chueng-Ryong Ji, organized the conference and serves as President-elect of KSEA, the Korean-American Scientists and Engineers Association. Professor Ji, a member of the physics department since 1991, has been active in the KSEA for many years. The meeting includes presentations by a number of notable speakers from around the world including Yale University Professor and Nobel Laureate Dr. Sidney Altman.

TeraGrid 2009 Award - 2009.06.28
Samuel Kenny, an NCSU physics Undergraduate withing with Professor John Blondin, grabbed the 'Peoples Choice Award' at the Visualization Showcase held at the TeraGrid '09 Conference in Washington, DC. Follow this link for more on the story

Physics graduate students receive prestigious fellowships - 2009.06.04
In yet another example of the recognized strength of the NC State graduate program in physics on campus and beyond, two doctoral students recently received prestigious fellowships. Eric Raymer received the NC State University Andrews Fellowship and Carlos Ortiz received a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship.

The Andrews Fellowship is NC State's most prestigious graduate fellowship. The one-year award is offered to one top entering PhD student in any discipline. The fellowship provides an annual stipend of $21,500 along with in-state tuition, fees and health insurance. The fellowship is funded through an endowment given to the University by the late Mrs. Grace Andrews of Raeford, NC.

This year's Andrews Fellowship recipient, Eric Raymer, graduated from Minnesota State University, Mankato in 2007 with a B.S. in physics and minor in mathematics with a GPA of 4.0. He joined Teach for America in the summer of 2007 and has taught science and math for the past two years at Weldon High School in Weldon, NC. While working in Weldon, Eric taught the first physics course offered in more than 10 years and developed an inquiry-driven curriculum for physical science and upper level physics. Eric will be entering the NC State physics doctoral program this fall.

"I'm honored to have been awarded the Andrews Fellowship and am very happy to be joining the PhD program in the fall," Raymer said. "I'm looking forward to an exciting and productive time at NC State!"

The National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship is a three-year award for doctoral candidates in science, mathematics and engineering fields. This fellowship provides a stipend of $30,000 per year and covers substantial educational expenses.

Carlos Ortiz is the NC State physics department's fourth recipient of the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship. He earned his B.S. from Davidson College before coming to NC State. His research with physics faculty Karen Daniels and Robert Riehn is a study of the jamming of sub-micron particles in microfluidic channels. For Ortiz, the attainment of a PhD in physics will be yet another step in a long journey of learning and discovery.

"I was born to a single mother in South America, where I grew up speaking Spanish, playing chess and dreaming of meeting Carl Sagan," he says. "My family and I moved to Columbia, SC, seven years ago mainly seeking better schooling for my brothers and me."

While they are always exciting, honors like those earned by Eric Raymer and Carlos Ortiz are nothing new to the NC State physics graduate program. The department has always attracted quality students at both the undergraduate and graduate level, as evidenced by generations of successful alumni in academics, government and industry. A concerted effort has been instituted recently to build on this tradition and to attract more of the nation's most elite students, with higher GRE scores, improving academic success, and greater impact with their research.

"Excellent graduate students are essential to the success of our program," said Harald Ade, professor of physics and director of the graduate program. "They are the ones executing much of the research in the laboratory. We consider them a key human resource similar to faculty for which we need to compete against other institutions, and we do what we can to make NC State the best place for our top applicants. These recent honors received by Carlos and Eric are just the latest examples that our efforts are paying off."

NC State physics graduate student wins first place for research poster - 2009.05.31
Brian Williams (Physics) won first place for physical and mathematical sciences at the Fourth Annual Graduate Research Symposium for his research "Using Supernova Remnants as a Probe of Dust Grains in the Interstellar Medium."[PDF] Interstellar dust grains, such as those Williams studied using supernova remnants, catalyze "formation of H₂ molecules important in star formation" and serve as "the building blocks of stars, planets, and life itself." However, relatively little research exists on the origin, composition and abundance of interstellar dust grains. The results of Williams' in-depth observations and testing suggest "re-working of fairly well established astrophysical theory."

Graduate Symposium Winners for 2009[PDF]

Graduating physics seniors receive awards - 2009.04.08
Physics students Travis McCaw, Guilhem Ribeill, and Leslie Watkins have been named recipients of the College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences Outstanding Seniors Awards for Scholarly Achievement, Research, and Leadership, respectively. Guilhem Ribeill will also receive the Rodney I. McCormick Award for undergraduate research in physics.

Physics major represents NCSU at ACC Meeting of the Minds - 2009.04.03
Chris Pope presented his research on gravitational accretion along with 7 other undergraduate students from NCSU at the 4th annual ACC Meeting of the Minds.

Red Means Go - 2009.03.13
Courage, perseverance and determination - traits displayed by some of the best and brightest students NC State has to offer, and characteristics truly displayed by Jeff Olander [More]

Thirteen physics majors received NCSU Undergraduate Research Awards to pursue research in physics labs during the Spring 2009 semester. - 2009.01.08
The students and their research mentors are:

Lewis Guignard (Harald Ade), Adele Lichtenberger (Karen Daniels), Evan Adamek (Hans Hallen), Melissa Fender (Karen Daniels), Max Hampson (Hans Hallen), Trevor Hawkins (Davide Lazzati), Andrew Hewitt (Daniel Dougherty), Adam Keith (Davide Lazzati), Sam Kenny (John Blondin), Brandon Long (Hans Hallen), Daniel Marley (Paul Huffman), Joseph Rose (Keith Weninger), Barak Schmookler (Paul Huffman)

Physics Department announces awards. - 2008.12.03
At the fall faculty meeting of the College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences on December 3^rd, a number of Physics Department faculty awards were announced. The list includes:

Dave Haase who was elected Chair of the Southeast Section of the American Physical Society, SESAPS;
Christopher Gould who was the recipient of the Research Triangle Institute's International President's Award;
Robert Beichner who was named a Distinguished Alumnus of the State University of New York at Buffalo;
Chueng Ji who was chosen President-elect of the Korean-American Scientists and Engineers Society;
John Hubisz who was named Chair of the American Association of Physics Teachers Committee on the Interests of Senior Physicists;
Robert Beichner who was a recipient of the Distinguished Service Citation of the American Association of Physics Teachers.

NC State Physics Department designated a leader in minority education by the American Institute of Physics, the AIP. - 2008.11.20
In a report issued by the Statistical Research Center of the AIP, the Physics Department is included in a listing of universities that have awarded the most PhDs to African Americans for the years 1998-2007. The published data lists only seven other non-HBCU Research I institutions: Cornell, Georgia Tech, MIT, Stanford, Alabama Birmingham, California San Diego, and Michigan.

NC State physics alumna receives 2009 Maria Goeppert Mayer Award - 2008.11.20
Saskia Mioduszewski (BS '94) has received the 2009 Maria Goeppert Mayer Award from the American Physical Society "for her pioneering contributions to the observation of jet quenching and her continuing efforts to understand high- p_T phenomena in rela- tivistic heavy-ion collisions."Mioduszewski is an assistant professor in the Department of Physics at Texas A&M University.

Professor Mioduszewski earned her BS in Physics and in Mathematics (magna cum laude) at NC State in 1994. She then went to the University of Tennessee where she earned her PhD in research that included a dissertation entitled Dependence of Antiproton Production in Proton-Nucleus Collisions at 17.5 and 12.3 GeV/c. After a post doctoral appointment at Brookhaven National Laboratory, she joined the physics department faculty at Texas A&M in 2005.

The story with photo can be found here

Entering Physics Freshman Class Maintains high standards
The entering class of Freshman who joined the NC State Physics Department this August represent another group of excellent students. Once again the university's highest SAT scores were recorded by our freshman. This year the average was 1343. Among the 28 new freshmen are 5 University Scholars, 2 Students in the University Honors Program, and 3 students in Women in Science and Engineering (WISE)

The Department is very proud to welcome the Fall08 graduate students.
It is at the same time the largest and the best incoming class ever. Overall, 24 Ph.D. and 2 MS students joined the program. 12 students are from the US. 14 came from abroad from 5 different countries. The largest contingent of foreign students is from China. Two of the foreign nationals are holding undergraduate degrees from the US. The students' research interests are diverse and well matched to the research in the department. A larger fraction than previously joined our program to work with specific Professors. We also welcome an exchange student from Germany into our graduate program.

How small is too small to be useful?
Physics Department researchers have done nanoscale analysis on ferroelectric thin films - materials that are used in electronic devices from computer memories to iPhones and polarize when exposed to an electric charge - and found that when it comes to polarization, both size and location matter.

The finding by Professor Marco Buongiorno-Nardelli and post-doctoral researcher Matías Nuñez suggests that, in creating tiny electrical devices, the use of extremely small components comes with the possibility of decreased effectiveness. Ferroelectric thin films are like sandwiches - layers of material held between two metals. When a charge is applied to the material in the sandwich, it polarizes, taking on a uniformly positive or negative charge.

Buongiorno-Nardelli and Nuñez have theorized that when ferroelectric thin films are miniaturized, at a certain size the material loses its ability to polarize. They found that this is not exactly the case: The atoms in the ferroelectric thin film still polarize, even on the nanoscale, but they don't do so in a uniform way, as they do at a larger scale. Instead, the polarization is disorganized with some atoms taking on a positive and others a negative charge, changing the overall properties of the material and allowing for residual polarization to exist. Their results were published online in the journal Physical Review Letters.

Buongiorno-Nardelli and Nuñez used computer modeling to examine how individual atoms within the thin film interacted with one another, and focused specifically on the distribution of the electrons within the atoms, since electron distribution determines whether the ferroelectric will polarize with a positive or negative charge. They discovered that at a thickness of around 20 to 30 nanometers, disorganization appears in the material.

"When you get to the nanoscale, you have individual atoms interacting with one another instead of groups of atoms," Buongiorno-Nardelli says. "At that point, it is no longer the property of the material itself - the ferroelectric - that counts, because the property of the interface, where the atoms bond, becomes dominant."

this article was also published on ncsu's home page.  |  research images can be found here.

NC State astrophysicists find Galaxy's most recent supernova
NC State professors Stephen Reynolds and Kazimierz Borkowski and collaborators have discovered the remains of the most recent supernova in our Milky Way Galaxy -- only about 100 years old, displacing the 330-year-old remnant Cassiopeia A, the record-holder for the last 50 years. The discovery was announced at a NASA press teleconference in May, and was widely reported in the general press. It has now been published in Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Reynolds and Borkowski used Chandra's orbiting Chandra X-ray Observatory to image the small radio remnant G1.9+0.3, finding that it had grown by 16% since a radio observation in 1985. This rate, if constant, gives an age of 140 years, but the expansion was almost certainly faster in the past, giving a younger age. Followup radio observations with the Very Large Array confirmed the expansion. X-ray spectra show such high obscuration that the supernova producing G1.9+0.3 would not have been visible in late Victorian times when the supernova light would have swept past Earth. The X-rays also indicate that G1.9+0.3 is one of only four of the 260 or so Galactic remnants whose X-rays are produced by synchrotron radiation, indicating the presence of extremely energetic electrons. Study of this object may thus cast light on the origin of cosmic rays. Here is a link to the story on Chandra website, with images

Physics Faculty Grows
After a year of active recruiting, the Physics Department is delighted to be welcoming five new members in the fall semester. Davide Lazzati, Kenan Gundogdu, and Daniel Dougherty will join the department as Assistant Professors while Matt Kohlmyer will be the department's first Teaching Assistant Professor and Keith Heyward joins the department as a Lecturer.

Professor Lazzati is an astrophysicist who earned his PhD at Milano University in Italy and comes to us from a post doc at JILA. Professors Gundogdu and Dougherty might both be classified as nanoscientists. Gundogdu took his degree at the University of Iowa and is completing a post doc at MIT. Dougherty is currently a post doc at NIST in Washington and earned his PhD at the University of Maryland.

Matt Kohlmyer earned his PhD in our department in Physics Education Research and is currently a post-doc at Georgia tech. Keith Heyward will earn his PhD in theoretical astrophysics in August in our department.

Ray Fornes wins Holladay Medal
Ray Fornes, Professor of Physics and Associate Dean for Research in the College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, has won the 2008 Alexander Quarles Holladay Medal for Excellence. This award recognizes the contributions to the university of Alexander Q. Holladay, who served as its first Professor of History and first President. The purpose of this award is to recognize members of the faculty who have made outstanding contributions to the university. This is the highest award made by the university in recognition of faculty career achievements.

Former Physics Graduate Student's work featured as Physical Review "Editors' Suggestion" Paper
The dissertation work of former physics graduate student Eric Adles led to a paper published in Physical Review B entitled "Application of the anisotropic bond model to second-harmonic generation from amorphous media." The paper was selected to be included as an "Editors' Suggestion" paper. This new designation is reserved for approximately 5% of the papers accepted for publication in the journal. According to Eric's co-author and research sponsor, Professor David Aspnes, the paper actually went "well beyond" what Eric did for his dissertation. Aspnes adds, "Although bond models have been around a long time for nonlinear optics, this is the first one to do the bond model right. The paper shows that and why nonlinear optics is actually simpler than linear optics. It's good to see that others recognize the value of this work also, and that it is to be highlighted in the Physical Review."

Eric received his PhD from North Carolina State University in 2007, and is currently a Post Doctoral Research Associate working with Professor Dave Aspnes on several projects.

NC State Physics Senior awarded prestigious fellowship
Senior Kasey Phillips has been awarded a prestigious NSF Graduate Fellowship. She will first attend the University of Cambridge to study Applied Mathematics, after which she will move to Harvard University to pursue a PhD in Applied Physics in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

Kasey, a Park Scholar from Charlotte, NC, has majored in both physics and mathematics. Through NC State Undergraduate Research Grants and the Honors Program, she has worked in the lab of Assistant Professor Karen Daniels, performing experiments on the size-segregation of granular materials under shear.

NC State Nuclear Physics team gets cover story
In an experimental program in collaboration with colleagues at Harvard, Yale, and NIST, a team of NC State nuclear physicists have their work featured on the cover of "The Review of Scientific Instruments." The work highlights an invited article that describes their work on a specific kind of high-field superconducting magnetic traps.

Magnetic traps can confine electrically neutral particles with nonzero magnetic moments; they have been used to trap atoms, molecules, and neutrons. The trap described in the article is an Ioffe-type magnetic trap that consists of a quadrupole assembly for radial confinement and two solenoid assemblies in the same current sense for axial confinement. Such a configuration eliminates zero field regions inside the trap, thereby suppressing the spin-flip probability of trapped particles. The trap is being developed for the team’s ultracold neutron lifetime experiment.

NC State co-authors of the work include Bob Golub, Ekatarina Korobkina, Chris O'Shaughnessy, Grant Palmquist, PilNeo Seo, and Paul Huffman.

Graduate Student's work featured in "Physical Review Focus"
NC State Physics graduate student Josh Beun's research was featured on the Physical Review website dedicated to highlighting recent important discoveries on March 26. The work considers a proposed site for heavy element production in a stage after the initial explosion in some supernovae where an outward blast of neutrinos from a newly-formed neutron star blows out a lot of neutron-rich material. Under the direction of Associate Professor Gail McLaughlin, Joshua set out to find conditions that would allow fission cycling and the r process to produce heavy elements in a neutrino-driven "wind.Ó Focusing on elements with atomic number greater than about 130, they were surprised to find that within a fairly wide range of conditions, their model yielded an element abundance pattern that has been observed in both old and new stars. Theirs is the first model to successfully include both the r process and fission cycling, and they didn't expect it to match observations so well.

Physics Department Professor Emerita passes away.
Members of the physics department family were shocked to hear of the passing of recent retiree and Professor Emerita Marjorie Klenin on January 19th. An active member of the physics department from 1977 to 2006, Marjorie was our first female faculty member. A graduate of Swarthmore and the University of Pennsylvania, Marjorie won teaching awards at NC State and was an innovative instructor in her years on our faculty.

Read more about Marjorie's life in an article submitted to Physics Today by Chris Gould, also of the Physics Department.

NCSU Physics Faculty win INCITE Award
Four NC State Physicists were included in DOE's 2008 Innovative and Novel Computational Impact on Theory and Experiment (INCITE) Awards for access to some of the world's most powerful supercomputers at DOE national laboratories. In all, 55 projects were awarded 265 million processor-hours. Three of those projects, with a combined total of 36 million processor-hours, include NC State physicists:

• John Blondin "Multidimensional Simulations of Core Collapse Supernovae"
• Lubos Mitas and Jerzy Bernholc "Predictive and accurate Monte Carlo based simulations for Mott insulators, cuprate superconductors, and nanoscale systems"
• Jerzy Bernholc and Marco Buongiorno-Nardelli "An Integrated Approach to the Rational Design of Chemical Catalysts"

The Physics Department loses a Colleague
Friends and colleagues of the physics department family were saddened to hear of the passing of Professor Emeritus David Martin on December 12th. David taught physics at NC State for 26 years. He was passionate about art, music, and nature in all its forms and inspired others to protect our environment. He was a past president of the Conservation Council of North Carolina and a long time member of the Raleigh Artist's Guild. David specialized in Chinese watercolor techniques, and provided the lovely landscapes that for years have graced the physics department office walls.

Professor Robert Golub Named APS Fellow
Physics Professor Robert Golub has been elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society. The citation declaring Professor Golub a Fellow reads:

"For pioneering research in studies of the neutron electric dipole moment, for development of the superthermal technique for production of ultracold neutrons, and for development of new methods in neutron spin echo research."

The nomination was made through the Society's Division of Nuclear Physics.

NCSU Physics Major named Marshall Scholar
Brian Clark '08, Physics major, Caldwell Fellow and University Scholar, has been named a Marshall Scholar. Brian will attend the University of Cambridge, in Cambridge, England, to study Applied Math and Physics. In a nationwide competition, the Marshall Scholarship Commission selects 40 outstanding scholars each year for two years of study in the United Kingdom. In his undergraduate career, Brian has worked with mentors at NC State, Oxford, and CERN. Brian is NC State's second Marshall Scholar. In 2002, Thomas Carbonell '02 attended the University of Oxford as a Marshall Scholar.

Second Annual Sayers Lecture a success!
Professor Arthur Bienenstock of Stanford University delivered the second annual Dale E. Sayers Lecture on October 15th in the Sayers Auditorium (301 Riddick Hall). Professor Bienenstock is the director of the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory (SSRL), was the senior science advisor to President Clinton, and is the president-elect of the American Physical Society. He delivered a talk entitled "Amorphous Materials and the development of the SSRL."

SCOPE Academy and Riddick Dedication Draws Alumni and Friends
The College of Physical and Mathematical Science and the Physics Department hosted a weekend of activities that included the official opening of Riddick Hall - the department's new home. Beginning with an alumni pig pickin' at Department Head Michael Paesler's home on Friday evening October 12th, activities on Saturday included the building dedication, laboratory tours, and the SCOPE Academy Approximately 150 Alumni and Friends of the Department attended the dedication ceremonies during which the building and two rooms were dedicated. Riddick 301 was officially named the Dale E. Sayers Auditorium with the unveiling of a plaque that reads

"Dale E. Sayers - In memory of his scientific vision and worldwide leadership in physics, outstanding service to the department, college and university and his inspiring mentorship of young scientists."

Also dedicated was the Richard R. Patty Conference Room which will be adorned with a plaque reading

"Richard R. Patty - In honor of his wise and strategic leadership as Physics Department head, 1976-1995, our department's greatest period of programmatic expansion."

Official Riddick Opening Ceremonies Scheduled
Activities surrounding the official opening of Riddick Hall will take place on October 12th and 13th. Beginning with an alumni/faculty pig pickin' at Department Head Michael Paesler's home in Cary on the evening of the 12th, the activities continue with a full day of events on the 13th. Most notably, the official opening ceremonies begin at 10:30 AM in the newly renovated Riddick Hall. Included will be a tour of the now-operational laboratories. The event is coupled to the College of Physical and Mathematical Science's SCOPE Academy. Information is available on the web at the PAMS Alumni & Friends Weekend page.

Astrophysicists Receive Major Grant
Professors Stephen Reynolds, John Blondin, and Kazimierz Borkowski have have received a $600k grant from the National Science Foundation to investigate Type Ia supernovae. These supernovae are thought to occur when a white dwarf star, the extremely dense remains of a low-mass star, happens to have a companion star close enough to drop material onto the white dwarf, raising its mass over a critical limit. Recent discoveries by the NC State researchers have shown that not all Type Ia supernovae are alike. Reynolds utilized the orbiting Chandra X-ray Observatory to study the remnant of Keplers supernova of 1604, and determined that this Type Ia explosion may have had a progenitor star of much higher mass than is usual. Borkowski led another X-ray study that found older remnants of Type Ia supernovae that also appear to be unusual.

The team has suggested reasons for the discrepancies they have found, and has proposed a series of studies to explore the nature of Type Ia supernovae. The work will center on using high-performance computers to simulate the evolution of a white dwarf and its companion before the explosion, to study the explosion itself, and to predict the appearance of the supernova remnant hundreds and thousands of years after the explosion.

Given the importance of these explosions for the origin of many chemical elements in the universe, and for studying its expansion, this project will address a very important problem in astrophysics, Reynolds said.

CHiPS Announces New NSF Grant
The NC State Center for High Performance Simulations - or CHiPS - has received a new 5-year NSF grant that will provide $1.7M for petascale quantum simulations in nano science and technology. The software and simulations developed in this project are targeted at the world's most powerful supercomputers, which will be able to sustain a petaflop (a thousand trillion floating point operations per second). The team, led by Prof. Jerry Bernholc from Physics, includes Prof. Wenchang Lu, also from Physics, Prof. C. Timothy Kelley from Mathematics, and Computer Science Professors Shirley Moore and Stan Tomov from the University of Tennessee.

The petascale quantum simulation tools will enable many scientific and technological endeavors, which are currently considered too risky to pursue. New research avenues will likely emerge, as results of such simulations are analyzed and new generally applicable concepts are created. Advances in nanoscale simulations are relevant to virtually every area of scientific endeavor including nanophysics, chemistry, biochemistry and molecular biosciences, earth sciences, engineering, environmental sciences and materials science. Students and postdocs trained in this area will have significant opportunities for advancement and making substantial impact on their own.

Professor David Haase quoted in Sports Illustrated cover story.
In The Big Hit, a cover story in Sports Illustrated, NC State Physics Professor David Haase is quoted in a discussion of the intensity of collisions players experience in playing American football. Frequently cited as an expert on the physics of sports, Professor Haase was asked to put football collisions in perspective. The Haase quote reads:

Another physics professor, David Haase of North Carolina State, suggests an experiment that can be performed in any backyard. "Jump off a 13-foot ladder and land on your feet," says Haase. "You would be traveling approximately 8.81 meters per second, which is about 20 miles per hour. It would hurt, but bending your knees would absorb most of the energy, so it doesn't sound too bad. But football players do not collide feet first. Now imagine diving off a 13-foot ladder and landing on the ground head and shoulders first.

Professor Haase has not quit his day job as a nuclear physicist. For example, he is currently involved in the Electric Dipole Moment of the Neutron, or EDM, project.

Official Grand Opening of Riddick Hall scheduled.
As the department waits for the newly renovated Riddick Hall to be available for occupancy sometime late this summer, we are planning for a gala event to be held during Fall Break on the 12th and 13th of October. Associated with the College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences annual "Alumni and Friends College," the department event will include an official ribbon cutting, reception, and tour of a brand new Riddick Hall. As details become available, we will be sure to feature them here on the department's webpage. For now, we encourage all friends, alumni, and students to keep the dates open and plan to join in the festivities.

A Deeper Understanding of Fermions
In a pair of Physical Review Letters,* Professor Lubos Mitas and his group have provided insight into fundamental properties of fermions. For quite some time theorists have based their studies of fermionic systems antisymmetry on the conjecture that for ground states there are only two domains which are created by a hypersurface or node. Professor Mitas provided the first analytical proof of this fundamental property. He further showed that for an arbitrary number of fermions there are only two nodal domains. These results are not only fundamentally important, in addition they have the potential of opening new channels for the Monte-Carlo methods which rely on the accuracy of fermion nodes.
* PRL96, 130201 and PRL96, 240402

NC State Scientist Discovers New Explanation for Pulsar's Spin
John Blondin, along with Anthony Mezzacappa at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, used the CRAY X1E supercomputer to develop a three-dimensional model of a pulsar's creation, and in the process discovered that conventional wisdom concerning the formation of these celestial objects wasn't correct. Their findings are published in the January 4^th edition of the journal Nature.

New Class of Supernovas
Steve Reynolds and Kazik Borkowski, who along with a team from NASA, Rutgers, and Naval Research Labs discovered a new class of supernova while studying Kepler’s Supernova, which occurred in 1604. Details were presented at the annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society.

Wireless service improvements
The NSF 2006 Performance and Accountability Report highlighted Hans Hallen and Sasha Duel-Hallen on their collaborative work on new tools to improve the quality of service for wireless customers. The report is available online.

New Directorship for Professor Beichner
Professor Robert Beichner has been named Director of the university's Discipline Based Education Research Center. Administered through Provost Larry Nielsen's office, the Center is a newly created entity, and Professor Biechner will be its first Director. When he assumes his new duties in January of 2007, Professor Beichner will maintain an office in Cox Hall. The department wishes Professor Beichner well in his new position, and we are delighted to know that Bob will not give up his departmental teaching duties and will maintain an active Physics Education Research program.