Highlights
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Nadya Mason
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Ph.D. Physics Stanford Univ 2001
- Research Statement:
Professor Mason's research at Illinois focuses on how electrons behave in low-dimensional, correlated materials, where enhanced interactions are expected to give novel results. She is particularly interested in the effect of reduced dimensionality and correlations on electron coherence. The understanding and control of electronic coherence is relevant to a variety of systems, including quantum communication, information storage, and qubit control in quantum computers. Professor Mason plans to take advantage of modern fabrication techniques to make and study a variety of nanostructures, such as quantum dots and wires, as well as arrays of superconducting dots.
So far Professor Mason's research has focused on the quantum behavior of nanotubes and on 2D and nanostructured superconductors. In both of these areas, her previous work has allowed us to gain insight into coherence and correlations in low-dimensional materials. In her work with nanotubes, she developed new fabrication techniques to control quantum properties of dots and wires. In her work with two-dimensional superconductors, she discovered unusual correlated phases and developed ways of trying to control and understand these phases. Work in both of these areas will continue. Typical measurements will be of electronic transport at low temperatures, with the aim of investigating the effects of electron-electron interactions, disorder, dissipation and sample-geometry. All of these effects can be tuned to augment-or diminish-coherence in nanostructures. Tuning these parameters is also expected to produce novel states of matter, and should allow us to identify and characterize the various forms of correlated electronic states that are induced in nanostructures.
Initial projects will include: (i) Tunneling experiments in carbon nanotubes, to study unusual correlated states such as Luttinger liquids, (ii) Tuning electronic correlations in nanotubes and nanowires via proximity effects caused by metallic, magnetic or superconducting current leads, and (iii) Creating planar arrays of superconducting dots, to control and understand collective phenomena in them.
- Research Interests:
- experimental condensed matter physics, mesoscopic and nanoscale physics, quantum properties of carbon nanotubes, graphene,topological insulators, low-dimensional superconductivity and correlated systems, quantum phase transitions
- Ph.D. thesis title: Superconductor-Metal-Insulator Transitions in Two Dimensions (Advisor - Aharon Kapitulnik, Stanford University); (Postdoctoral Advisor - Charles Marcus, Harvard University)
- For more information:
- Mason Research Group
Honors, Recognition, and Outstanding Achievements for Research:
- Dean's Award for Excellence in Research, 2013
- Maria Goeppert Mayer Award, 2012
- Kavli Fellow, 2011
- Center for Advanced Study Fellow, 2011-2012
- Denice Denton Emerging Leader Award, 2009
- Woodrow Wilson Career Enhancement Fellow 2008-2009
- Diverse Magazine "Emerging Scholar" 2008
- National Science Foundation CAREER Award, 2007-2012
- Junior Fellow, Harvard Society of Fellows 2002-2005
- Lucent Corporate Research Fellowship Program 1995-2001
- National Science Foundation Minority Research Fellowship 1995-1998
- Leiberman Fellowship, Stanford Univ. 1995
- Mellon Minority Undergraduate Fellowship 1992-1995
Honors, Recognition, and Outstanding Achievements for Public Service:
- Denice Denton Energing Leader Award, 2009