The University is recognizing two faculty members with the 2012 Research Award, Robert Nemiroff and Andrew Storer. In nominating Nemiroff, physics professor Don Beck and Ravindra Pandey, chair of the physics department, cited his research based on gravitational lensing, noting that his groundbreaking predictions regarding binary stars, quasars and microlensing events (which give insight into stellar distributions and dark matter) have been proved correct. In another project, Nemiroff and his graduate students searched gamma-ray bursts to find “echoes” caused by the gravitational lens effect of dark matter. READ MORE
Images of ZnO Nanotubes are selected as one of the cover images of Applied Physics Letters (APL) highlighted in the APL 50th anniversary celebration website. The related article, “Formation of Single Crystalline ZnO Nanotubes without Catalysts and Templates,” was the most read article in March 2007. The images and article are from Professor Yoke Khin Yap’s research group.
Recent work on in-situ probing of individual boron nitride nanotubes by scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) inside a transmission electron microscopy (TEM) system is being featured in NanotechWeb. The research is conducted by Hessam M Ghassemi and Reza S Yassar in the mechanical engineering-engineering mechanics department and Chee Hui Lee and Yoke Khin Yap in the physics department. NanotechWeb notes that BNNTs are unique materials which enable the study of band structure modulation by mechanical straining. “This may lead to rational control of the electrical properties of novel nanostructures in the future,” commented Yoke Yap.