Category: Research

Faculty Position

Image of Michigan Tech campus from above
Michigan Technological University
Est. 1885

The Department of Physics at Michigan Technological University (MTU) seeks a candidate to fill a faculty position as a tenure-track Assistant Professor or higher level in Optics, to begin in August 2025. Preference will be given to candidates with experience in quantum optics, optical sensing, polaritonics, or photonic quantum computation. However, researchers displaying excellence in any areas of optics that complement the activities of current physics faculty at MTU are encouraged to apply. The successful candidate will receive support from the Elizabeth and Richard Henes Center for Quantum Phenomena (https://www.mtu.edu/quantum/), housed within the department.

Required qualifications include a Ph.D. in Physics or a closely related field, postdoctoral experience, and a proven publication record. Candidates should demonstrate commitment to teaching and mentoring at undergraduate and graduate levels. 

Please apply online at https://www.employment.mtu.edu/cw/en-us/job/493716/assistantprofessor-optics, including vita, statements of research interests and teaching philosophy, and contact information for three references. Application evaluation will begin January 6, 2025, and continue until the position is filled. Detailed information about the department can be found at https://www.mtu.edu/physics/. 

MTU is Michigan’s flagship technological university and will be a Carnegie-classified R1 institution in 2025. The university provides its graduates with an extremely high return on investment through its academic rigor and focus on experiential learning. Located near the shore of Lake Superior in Michigan’s scenic Upper Peninsula, the university provides a high standard of living. The community offers a small-town environment with outstanding four-season recreational opportunities.

MTU is an Equal Opportunity Educational Institution/Equal Opportunity Employer that provides equal opportunity for all, including protected veterans and individuals with disabilities. 


About the Physics Department

Physicists at Michigan Technological University help students apply academic concepts to real-world issues. Our physicists take on the big questions to discover how the universe works—from the smallest particles to the largest galaxies. The Physics Department offers three undergraduate degrees and three graduate degrees. Supercharge your physics skills to meet the demands of a technology-driven society at a flagship public research university powered by science, technology, engineering, and math. Graduate with the theoretical knowledge and practical experience needed to solve real-world problems and succeed in academia, research, and tomorrow’s high-tech business landscape.

Questions? Contact us at physics@mtu.edu. Follow us on FacebookTwitter, and YouTube for the latest happenings. Or read more at the Physics Newsblog.

The Reactive INTERFACE Force Field

Professor Ravindra Pandey
Professor Ravindra Pandey

A team including Michigan Tech research groups led by Ravi Pandey and Greg Odegard (MAE) has published a research article in Nature Communications. The title is “Implementing reactivity in molecular dynamics simulations with harmonic force fields.”

The research highlights the development of the Reactive INTERFACE Force Field (IFF-R) for molecular dynamics simulations for various material systems, including molecules, nanotubes, metals and polymer composites. The newly developed IFF-R, which incorporates specific chemical environments and electronic structure effects as needed, is both accurate and efficient. IFF-R calculations use significantly fewer computational resources compared to current reactive force fields to predict the structural and mechanical properties of complex biological and material structures, from atomic to micrometer scales.

Recent physics alum Geeta Sachdeva (PhD ’22) was a key contributor to this project. The research groups of Hendrik Heinz of the University of Colorado Boulder, Adri van Duin of Penn State, and Pieter J. in ‘t Veld of BASF, Germany also collaborated on the study.

The work was partially supported by grant NNX17AJ32G from the NASA Space Technology Research Institute for Ultra-Strong Composites by Computational Design to Michigan Tech.


About the Physics Department

Physicists at Michigan Technological University help students apply academic concepts to real-world issues. Our physicists take on the big questions to discover how the universe works—from the smallest particles to the largest galaxies. The Physics Department offers three undergraduate degrees and three graduate degrees. Supercharge your physics skills to meet the demands of a technology-driven society at a flagship public research university powered by science, technology, engineering, and math. Graduate with the theoretical knowledge and practical experience needed to solve real-world problems and succeed in academia, research, and tomorrow’s high-tech business landscape.

Questions? Contact us at physics@mtu.edu. Follow us on FacebookTwitter, and YouTube for the latest happenings. Or read more at the Physics Newsblog.

Claudio Mazzoleni and Will Cantrell Receive 2024 Juan Fernandez de la Mora Prize

Claudio Mazzoleni
Claudio Mazzoleni
Will Cantrell
Will Cantrell

Professor Claudio Mazzoleni (Physics) and Dean/Professor Will Cantrell (GS/Physics) are recipients of the 2024 Juan Fernandez de la Mora Prize from the American Association for Aerosol Research.

The prize recognizes Mazzoleni and Cantrell’s contributions to experimental research in aerosol science. Their group will receive a differential mobility analyzer (DMA) as a gift from Professor Juan Fernandez de la Mora, a faculty member at Yale University, to measure size distributions of nanometer particles at high resolution.

About the Juan Fernandez de la Mora Prize 

The study of nanometer particles at high resolution has been held back by the limited number of research groups having high-resolution nano-DMAs. To stimulate research in the field, a prototype of a Half-Mini DMA (1,2), which has been developed by Dr. Juan Fernandez de la Mora, a faculty member at Yale University, will be awarded by the AAAR to an AAAR member. One instrument will be awarded each year as a gift from Juan Fernandez de la Mora, and the license to operate it is a gift from the NanoEngineering Corporation (NEC).


About the Physics Department

Physicists at Michigan Technological University help students apply academic concepts to real-world issues. Our physicists take on the big questions to discover how the universe works—from the smallest particles to the largest galaxies. The Physics Department offers three undergraduate degrees and three graduate degrees. Supercharge your physics skills to meet the demands of a technology-driven society at a flagship public research university powered by science, technology, engineering, and math. Graduate with the theoretical knowledge and practical experience needed to solve real-world problems and succeed in academia, research, and tomorrow’s high-tech business landscape.

Questions? Contact us at physics@mtu.edu. Follow us on FacebookTwitter, and YouTube for the latest happenings. Or read more at the Physics Newsblog.

Professor Huentemeyer, Other Project Leaders Select Site for Southern Wide-Field Gamma-Ray Observatory

Michigan Tech is a key contributor to the construction planning of the Southern Wide-Field Gamma-Ray Observatory (SWGO), a cutting-edge facility that will enable researchers to observe very-high- to ultra-high-energy gamma rays from cosmic sources.

Petra Huentemeyer - Gamma-Ray Observatory
Distinguished Professor of Physics Petra Huentemeyer, Vice-spokesperson for the Southern Wide-field Gamma-ray Observatory.

The project’s leaders, including the director of Michigan Tech’s Earth, Planetary, and Space Sciences Institute, Petra Huentemeyer, have selected Pampa La Bola in Chile as the future site of the Gamma-Ray Observatory, which will be the first of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere.

“Selecting the site for an Gamma-Ray Observatory is a major milestone on the path toward building it,” said Huentemeyer. “The fact that we reached a decision in such an effective manner really speaks to the strength of our collaboration of 15 countries.”

Gamma-Ray Observatory - array of detectors
A large array of detectors will allow SWGO to measure cosmic rays up to the PeV scale. Image credit Richard White, MPIK via swgo.org

Read more about the SWGO project at Michigan Tech News.


About the Physics Department

Physicists at Michigan Technological University help students apply academic concepts to real-world issues. Our physicists take on the big questions to discover how the universe works—from the smallest particles to the largest galaxies. The Physics Department offers three undergraduate degrees and three graduate degrees. Supercharge your physics skills to meet the demands of a technology-driven society at a flagship public research university powered by science, technology, engineering, and math. Graduate with the theoretical knowledge and practical experience needed to solve real-world problems and succeed in academia, research, and tomorrow’s high-tech business landscape.

Questions? Contact us at physics@mtu.edu. Follow us on FacebookTwitter, and YouTube for the latest happenings. Or read more at the Physics Newsblog.

New Funding: El-Ganainy’s Project Funded by University of Southern California

Ramy El-Ganainy is the PI on a project that has received a $53,754 research and development contract from the University of Southern California. The project is titled “Optical Thermodynamics of Nonlinear Multimode Systems Topic 1.A.ii(4) Quantum Optics.”

About Ramy El-Ganainy

Ramy El-Ganainy
Ramy El-Ganainy
Professor, Physics

El-Ganainy is a professor of physics. Recently, he joined the Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems as a guest scientist for one year. Elected by the Board of Directors of Optica (formerly OSA), Advancing Optics and Photonics Worldwide, to the Society’s 2023 Fellow Class for seminal contributions in the fields of non-Hermitian photonics, parity-time symmetry, and optical supersymmetry. His research interests span a wide spectrum of topics, ranging from classical optics to computational techniques for radiation-matter interactions. He has published 175+ papers and given more than 10 conference presentations.


About the Physics Department

Physicists at Michigan Technological University help students apply academic concepts to real-world issues. Our physicists take on the big questions to discover how the universe works—from the smallest particles to the largest galaxies. The Physics Department offers three undergraduate degrees and three graduate degrees. Supercharge your physics skills to meet the demands of a technology-driven society at a flagship public research university powered by science, technology, engineering, and math. Graduate with the theoretical knowledge and practical experience needed to solve real-world problems and succeed in academia, research, and tomorrow’s high-tech business landscape.

Questions? Contact us at physics@mtu.edu. Follow us on FacebookTwitter, and YouTube for the latest happenings. Or read more at the Physics Newsblog.

New Funding: Shaw’s Project Funded by Brookhaven National Laboratory

Raymond Shaw is the principal investigator on a project that has received a $35,591 research and development contract from the Brookhaven National Laboratory. The project is titled “Brookhaven National Laboratory Joint Appointment.” This is a potential two-year project.

About Raymond Shaw

Raymond Shaw
Raymond A. Shaw
University Professor, Physics

Dr. Shaw’s research involves the physics of the Earth’s atmosphere, with an emphasis on clouds and experimental tools for studying clouds. Research in Shaw’s group has focused on understanding the influence of turbulence on cloud particle growth through condensation and collisions, and on understanding the nucleation process through which ice forms from liquid water. Shaw’s group is actively involved in the development of methods for studying clouds in controlled conditions in the laboratory as well as in the atmosphere itself. For example, digital holography is applied to particle tracking in turbulent laboratory clouds, and to measurement of particle size distributions in clouds sampled by research aircraft. The Cloud Physics Laboratory is the home of several exciting research studies.


About the Physics Department

Physicists at Michigan Technological University help students apply academic concepts to real-world issues. Our physicists take on the big questions to discover how the universe works—from the smallest particles to the largest galaxies. The Physics Department offers three undergraduate degrees and three graduate degrees. Supercharge your physics skills to meet the demands of a technology-driven society at a flagship public research university powered by science, technology, engineering, and math. Graduate with the theoretical knowledge and practical experience needed to solve real-world problems and succeed in academia, research, and tomorrow’s high-tech business landscape.

Questions? Contact us at physics@mtu.edu. Follow us on FacebookTwitter, and YouTube for the latest happenings. Or read more at the Physics Newsblog.

Tech Team Tackles Tar Balls’ Impacts On Climate

Research by Claudio Mazzoleni and physics alumni Susan Mathai ’23 and Swarup China ’12 featured in a news article in Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory (EMSL) at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) by the EMSL. Mazzoleni and a multi-institutional team of researchers set out to determine exactly how solar radiation from the sun interacts with individual tar balls dispersed over a mountainous region in northern Italy.  The research assesses the optical properties of individual tar balls to better understand their influence on climate. 

Tar balls, found in biomass-burning smoke (think smoke from forest fires), impact the Earth’s radiative balance. Understanding the optical properties of tar balls can help reduce uncertainties associated with the contribution of biomass-burning aerosol in current climate models.

The original paper was selected for the cover of the Nov 7th issue of Environmental Science and Technology, and was co-authored by Tyler Capek and Susan Mathai (both Physics); Daniel Veghte of The Ohio State University; Zezhen Cheng, Swarup China ’12 (PhD Atmospheric Sciences), Libor Kovarik, Mazzoleni, and Kuo-Pin Tseng, of the PNNL; and Silvia Bucci and Angela Marinoni, Institute of Atmospheric Sciences and Climate (ISAC)-National Research Council of Italy.

Image of Claudio Mazzoleni
Claudio Mazzoleni
Professor, Physics
Image of Susan Mathai
Susan Mathai ’23
Image of Swarup China
Swarup China ’12

Physicists develop a linear response theory for open systems having exceptional points


Linear analysis plays a central role in science and engineering. Even when dealing with nonlinear systems, understanding the linear response is often crucial for gaining insight into the underlying complex dynamics. In recent years, there has been a great interest in studying open systems that exchange energy with a surrounding reservoir. In particular, it has been demonstrated that open systems whose spectra exhibit non-Hermitian singularities called exceptional points can demonstrate a host of intriguing effects with potential applications in building new lasers and sensors.


At an exceptional point, two or modes become exactly identical. To better understand this, let us consider how drums produce sound. The membrane of the drum is fixed along its perimeter but free to vibrate in the middle. As a result, the membrane can move in different ways, each of which is called a mode and exhibits a different sound frequency. When two different modes oscillate at the same frequency, they are called degenerate. Exceptional points are very peculiar degeneracies in the sense that not only the frequencies of the modes are identical but also the oscillations themselves. These points can exist only in open, non-Hermitian systems with no analog in closed, Hermitian systems.


Over the past years, ad-hoc analysis of the scattering coefficients of non-Hermitian systems having exceptional points has revealed a puzzling result, namely that sometimes their frequency response (the relation between an output and input signals after interacting with the system as a function of the input signal’s frequency) can be Lorentzian or super Lorentzian (i.e. a Lorentzian raised to an integer power). In contrast, the response of a standard linear, isolated oscillator (excluding situations where Fano lineshapes can arise) is always Lorentzian.


Now, an international team of physicists led by Prof. Ramy El-Ganainy from Michigan Technological University, along with several collaborators from Penn State, the Humboldt University in Berlin, and the University of Central Florida, has tackled this problem in their recent Nature Communications article titled “Linear response theory of open systems with exceptional points”. In that work, the team presents a systematic analysis of the linear response of non-Hermitian systems having exceptional points. Importantly, they derive a closed-form expression for the resolvent operator quantifying the system’s response in terms of the right and left eigenvectors and Jordan canonical vectors associated with the underlying Hamiltonian.

A schematic representation of a complex non-Hermitian open system with many degrees of freedom made of coupled optical microdisk cavities. The linear response theory developed in this work provides a full characterization of the relation between output and input signals (indicated by green and yellow arrows, respectively) in terms of the eigenmodes and the canonical states of the underlying non-Hermitian Hamiltonian.


“In contrast to previous expansions of the resolvent operator in terms of the Hamiltonian itself, the formalism developed here provides direct access to the linear response of the system and demonstrates exactly when and how Lorentzian and super-Lorentzian responses arise” says Prof. El-Ganainy. “As it turned out, the nature of the response is determined by the excitation (input) and collection (output) channels” says Amin Hashemi, the first author of the manuscript. The presented theory describes this behavior in detail and is generic enough to apply to any non-Hermitian systems having any number of exceptional points of any order, which makes it instrumental for studying non-Hermitian systems with large degrees of freedom.


Lucas Simonson, physics PhD candidate awarded scholarship to study in Germany

Lucas Simonson is off to study in Germany

Lucas Simonson has been awarded a scholarship by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). He will study at the Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems in Dresden.

The German DAAD is a joint organization of the universities and other institutions of higher education in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the world’s largest funding organization of its kind. Supported by public funds, the DAAD promotes international academic cooperation, especially through the exchange of students and academics. DAAD scholarships are awarded by selection committees comprising a panel of independent academics.

He looks forward to studying under Professor Kurt Busch starting October 2022 to the end of April 2023. “The rationale for this trip is that joining my advisor in Germany will allow me to proceed with my research activities at a fast pace without any delay due to his absence. It will also allow me to interact with world-class optics research groups at the Humboldt-Universität Berlin,” he says. “It’s a significant milestone in my academic career and will allow me to experience other cultures outside of those in the US to broaden my worldview,” says Lucas.

Studying in Germany adds another frame of reference in his study of physics. “Lucas is bringing a unique perspective to our group by combining an interdisciplinary education in both electrical engineering and physics,” says Ramy El-Ganainy, associate professor of physics.

Lucas obtained an MS in Applied Physics (back in the spring of 2021). He entered the PhD candidacy at the end of this past spring semester. Upon getting his PhD, Lucas plans to pursue R&D-related work at Ft. Belvoir in Virginia for The Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Cyber, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (C5ISR) Center, the U.S. Army’s information technologies and integrated systems center.

Guest Blog: Uncovering Global Dust-Climate Connections

By Kimberly Geiger, College of Engineering

A satellite photo of a dust storm
“Godzilla” Saharan dust storm in June 2020. Photo courtesy of NASA.

Developed at Michigan Tech, a new global weather station-based dataset named dulSD is enabling long-term, large-scale monitoring of the dust cycle.

As wind shapes the surface of the Earth, it pulls dust from dry, exposed land surfaces into the atmosphere. Xin Xi (GMES) uses observations and models to study the sources, transformation and transport of dust to assess its impact on climate and air quality.

“Airborne dust aerosols impact the Earth in a myriad of ways,” he explained. “Mineral dust interacts with the global energy budget, ocean biogeochemistry, air quality and agriculture.”

Satellite remote sensing, a major source of information to study global dust variability, lacked the specifics Xi needed. He revisited the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Integrated Surface Database and set out to create a new dataset for evaluating global dust, which he named duISD.

How much dust is there? Read more on Unscripted, the University’s research blog.