Experimental Condensed Matter & Biological Physics
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The experimental condensed matter and biological physics group at Syracuse comprises five faculty members interested in a wide array of topics ranging from devices for quantum computing to biological physics. There are also several postdoctoral research associates, graduate and undergraduate students working in this area.
Faculty: M. Forstner, K. Foster, M. LaHaye, L. Movileanu, B. Plourde, E. Schiff
Martin B. Forstner is an experimental biophysicist whose research focuses on dynamics and organization of biological membranes. These fluid lipid bilayers define, together with their associated proteins, the compartments within living cells. At the same time membranes also serve as important bio-reactive surfaces for signal processing and communication of cells with their environment. Reflecting the membrane's important role in cellular organization are for example the many diseases inherently related to malfunctions of membrane associated processes. Prof. Forstner's group is interested in the physical mechanisms that couple membrane configuration (e.g. 
location and chemical identity of membrane components) and biochemical regulation. To that end the group studies in vitro and in vivo membranous systems using methods from Physics, Biology, Chemistry and Material Sciences. A particular focus of the group is the use and development of advanced optical techniques such as multicolor total internal reflection (TIRF) microscopy, single molecule tracking or multicolor fluorescence cross-correlation spectroscopy (FCCS). For more information, please visit the Forstner Lab web-page.
Kenneth Foster and Jureepan Saranak study the integration of sensory-response behavior by a single biological cell. As a model, the swimming of a motile unicellular organism relative to a source of light (phototaxis) is studied. The organism model is Chlamydomonas, which swims and steers with a pair of 0.24- m m-diameter cylindrical actively bending appendages called cilia. They play a direct or developmental role in the sensors of fluid flow, light, sound, gravity, smells, touch, temperature and taste in all mammals. Cilia also keep fluids moving in the brain ventricles and the lungs and propel and steer sperm. In the past, we showed the eye of Chlamydomonas is a quarter-wave stack structure using constructive interference to optimize the capture of light, identified its visual photoreceptor to be a rhodopsin, and discovered the electronic mechanism of rhodopsin activation that precedes the isomerization of its chromophore. With precisely controlled light stimulation and real-time imaging of the motion of Chlamydomonas cilia we address fundamental biological questions. Currently these questions include 1) how light and chemical biolog
ical sensors ( the targets of most medicines) work; 2) how these sensors have evolved to be the most common human receptor machine; 3) how multiple sensor inputs are processed by a molecular network to give robust integrated cell responses such as steering in specific directions using seemingly only a few intermediate messengers; and 4) how cilia perform self organizing beating and how that beating is controlled on a slower time scale. Visit Ken and Juree's Home Page.
Matt LaHaye is a low-temperature physicist whose research focuses on the development of nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS) for studying the fundamental limits to measurement and the quantum properties of nanostructures. There is currently a large effort spanning several fields in the physics community to study mechanical systems in the quantum regime. Motivations range from developing ultra-sensitive detectors for measurement of weak forces to addressing fundamental issues in quantum mechanics such at the ‘quantum-classical’ divide. NEMS devices are a central component of this effort. In essence, NEMS are nanofabricated devices consisting of integrated electrical and mechanical degrees-of-freedom. The mechanical elements in these systems possess miniscule mass (on the order of pico-grams) and oscillate at frequencies as high as 1 GHz, making them very promising candidates for exploring new frontiers of the quantum world. In principle, under the right conditions, quantized energy, zero-point fluctuations, and other hallmarks of a quantum oscillator should be exhibited by such resonators; this is a tantalizing prospect when one considers that these reso
nant structures consist of billions of atoms and are large enough to be seen under an optical microscope. Testing these predictions requires the development of sufficiently sensitive detectors and measurement techniques that don’t destroy the fragile quantum effects we seek to observe. Work in the LaHaye group aims at developing such techniques through the integration of quantum devices, such as superconducting qubits, as control and detection elements in NEMS.
Liviu Movileanu's laboratory investigates a range of subjects from fundamental single-molecule and membrane biophysics to more applicative nanobiotechnology. His research team uses a broad spectrum of experimental techniques, from single-channel electrical recordings on planar lipid bilayers and proteoliposomes to the nanofabrication of silicon-based materials and protein engineering. The primary direction of this group is to design nanopore-based molecular probes for the detection, exploration, and characterization of nucleic acids, proteins and their complexes with the interacting ligands. The electrical measurements through a single nanopore il
luminate the stochastic dynamics of individual molecules, such as their conformational fluctuations and interactions with other molecules, as well as the energetic requirements for their transition from one state to another. In the long term, the group's efforts will target the a daptation of these approaches to a microfabricated chip platform, providing a new generation of research tools in nanomedicine for examining the details of complex biochemical events in a quantitative manner. For more info, visit Movileanu's Home Page.
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Britton Plourde studies quantum coherence and vortex dynamics in microfabricated superconducting devices. These devices have features as small as 100 nm, and the measurements take place at temperatures near absolute zero. Quantum coherent superconducting devices are one of the leading candidates for the building blocks, or "qubits", of a quantum computer. Such a computer would be capable of solving many problems which are intractable on even the most powerful classical computer. Plourde's research focuses on fabricating these superconducting qubits, optimizing the techniques for reading out their quantum state, minimizing the decoherence of the qubits, and developing techniques for generating entanglement. Vortices in superconductors exhibit a rich variety of phenomena as they interact with currents, defects, and each other. With nanoscale patterning and etchi
ng, it is possible to control the location and motion of these vortices. Plourde's group employs such nanofabricated structures to investigate novel vortex dynamics, such as vortex ratchets, which can produce a directed motion of vortices in response to an oscillatory driving force. Other ongoing projects probe the low-temperature response of vortices at microwave frequencies and explore the possibility of quantum coherent vortex dynamics. Visit Plourde's Home Page. Home Page.
Eric Schiff's research primarily involves experimental study of unconventional semiconductors and their applications in solar cells. The laboratory is equipped for studying electrical and optical properties, with a specialty in "time of flight" observations of how electrons and holes move in semiconductors. Over the years, the material of interest has mostly been hydrogenated amorphous silicon (usually denoted a-Si:H). This material started out as a physicist's plaything. a-Si:H was the first non-crystalline semiconductor which had electrical properties even remotely similar to crystalline semiconductors such as silicon or gallium arsenide, and its structural, electrical, and optical properties are extremely interesting. Somehow a-Si:H has now gained enormous commercial significance: it is part of the screen of an LCD television set, and solar cells made from it are spread widely over deserts and rooftops. The work with amorphous silicon is presently funded by th
e U.S. Department of Energy and by United Solar Ovonic LLC. Schiff's group is also working on several other projects supported by the Syracuse Center of Excellence in Environmental and Energy Systems. One project (with Tewodros Asefa's group in chemistry) concerns mesoporous titania, which is the basis of a very interesting solar cell invented by O'Regan and Graetzel. Another project (with Antek, Inc.) is exploring conducting polymers as one layer on a crystal silicon solar cell. In a third project, they're just completing the first time-of-flight measurements on CIGS (copper indium-gallium diselenide), which is still another material of great interest for solar cells. Visit Schiff's Home Page.
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