Physics and Astronomy At The University of Georgia

Among the most prevalent ways to control the assembly and integration of nanoparticles is to coat them with organic molecules whose specific functionalized groups modifies their inter particle interactions as well as the interaction of nanoparticles with their surrounding, while retaining their inherent properties. While it is often assumed that uniformly coating spherical nanoparticles with short organic will lead to symmetric nanoparticles, I will show using explicit-atom molecular dynamics simulations of model nanoparticles that the high curvature of small nanoparticle and the relatively short dimensions of the coating can produce highly asymmetric coating arrangements. In solution geometric properties dictate when a coating’s spherical symmetry will be unstable and that the chain end group and the solvent play a secondary role in determining the properties of surface patterns. At the water-vapor interface the anisotropic nanoparticle coatings seen in bulk solvents are reinforced by interactions at the interface. The coatings are significantly distorted and oriented by the surface and depend strongly on the amount of free volume provided by the geometry, end group, and solvent properties. At an interface any inhomogeneity or asymmetry tends to orient with the surface so as to minimize free energy. These asymmetric and oriented coatings are expected to have a dramatic effect on the interactions between nanoparticles and can influence the structures of aggregated nanoparticles which self-assemble in the bulk and at surfaces

TBA

The Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Georgia is seeking applicants for a full-time academic-year faculty position at the tenure-track assistant professor level in the field of experimental applied nanoscience, for hiring effective August 2012. This search is part of an initiative to expand the existing nanoscience program in the Department and to complement/enhance existing programs in nanoscience on campus (www.nano.uga.edu). See full details on the faculty search site: https://www.physast.uga.edu/faculty_search/nanoscience-2012/

Physics Professor Michael Geller and a team of co-principal investigators including Physics Professor Phillip Stancil received a $2 million grant from the National Science Foundation to begin work on a quantum computer that could more efficiently and more rapidly solve problems in such fields as cryptography, mathematics and physics. Geller stated, "We will use this grant to develop and demonstrate a general purpose quantum simulator built from supercomputing electrical circuits."

The key to quantum computing is using clusters of data called qubits (for quantum bits) that handle data differently than conventional computers based on transistors. Traditional computers use a 1 or a 0 to represent "on" or "off" states, but a qubit, which can be constructed in different ways, can represent 1 and 0 states simultaneously in something called superposition.

Article:  Geller quantum computer

The week of September 13th, a team including Nick Barker and Prof. Vasilios Stavros from the University of Warwick (UK) and Prof. Susanne Ullrich from UGA performed four "flash and bang" science demonstrations for more than 600 students at middle schools in the Athens area. The lectures covered some fundamental principles of chemistry and physics but also extended into more advanced topics such as biofuels and chemiluminescence and were accompanied by impressive displays of loud bangs and explosions. The school children were also introduced to real-life scientific research on the photostability of DNA as currently in progress in the ultrafast laser spectroscopy laboratories of Profs. Stavros and Ullrich.  These outreach activities to local schools were supported by a NSF and EPSRC grant "International Collaboration in Chemistry between US Investigators and their Counterparts Abroad (ICC)". 

The Nobel physics committee officially invited a prominent international physicist to submit proposals for the award of the Nobel Prize in Physics for 2010; he has nominated Professor Lee for his invention of a rigorous technique known as the recurrence relations method and its application to the theory of the ergodic hypothesis.