Physics Colloquium
Michigan Technological University
Thursday, March 27, 2014
at 4:00 pm
Room 139 Fisher Hall
A Study of Enhancement in Faraday Rotation and
Circular Dichroism in Ultra-Thin Magnetic Garnet Films
by Ashim Chakravarty
Advisor: Dr. Miguel Levy
15th Annual Western UP Science Fair and Festival Tuesday
The 15th Annual UP Science and Engineering Festival will be held 4:30-7:30 pm, Tuesday, March 25.
From 4:30-7:30 pm, K-8 students and their families may participate in the Science and Engineering Festival that will offer more than two dozen fun, hands-on engineering, physics, biological sciences, chemistry activities conducted by fifty Michigan Tech students in the Memorial Union Building Commons (ground floor).
Activities are facilitated by Biomedical Engineering students, Society of Physics Students, Dept of Chemistry students, Biological Sciences students, Engineers Without Borders, and more!
Read more at Tech Today.
Vice President for Research Announces Faculty Fellows Selections
The Office of the Vice President for Research has selected the 2014 recipients of the newly implemented Faculty Fellow Program. The first Faculty Fellows for 2014-2015 are: Larry Sutter (MSE), for Sponsored Program Administration, Adrienne Minerick (ChE) for Strategic Planning and Budget, and Yoke Khin Yap (Physics) for Economic Development and Technology Commercialization.
From Tech Today.
A Faculty Fellow in Economic Development and Technology Commercialization will be involved in areas such as IP commercialization and startup support.
Physics researchers at Michigan Tech produced some results of interactions of boron nitride nanotube (BNNT) and amino acids through the use of density functional theory. The 2011 paper entitled “Sensitivity of Boron Nitride Nanotubes toward Biomolecules of Different Polarities” (DOI: 10.1021/jz2010557) created the following response in a recent experimental paper “Facile and Mild Strategy Toward Biopolymer-Coated Boron Nitride Nanotubes via a Glycine-Assisted Interfacial Process” (DOI: 10.1021/jp4073729):
Inspired by these theoretical investigations, we set about to assess experimentally the interactions of BNNTs with glycine. We discovered that this simple amino acid is remarkably efficient in breaking up pristine BNNT bundles, yielding hydrophilic BNNTs dispersed in water as individual, debundled, nanotubes.
Authors of the theoretical study include Saikat Mukhopadhyay, Ralph H. Scheicher, Ravindra Pandey, and Shashi P. Karna.
Adjunct Assistant Professor of Physics Gowtham attended the HPC (High-Performance Center) Advisory Council Conference and Exascale Workshop at Stanford University in February 2014. Gowtham presented “Streamlining Computing Infrastructure: A Small School’s Experience.”
International Science Grid This Week (iSGTW) interviewed Gowtham regarding the issues and challenges experienced by Michigan Tech during this overhaul of research computing. The interview appeared in the February 12, 2014, article “How one small school streamlined research-computing infrastructure,” by Amber Harmon.
Gowtham is an HPC Research Scientist for Information Technology Services at Michigan Tech. Learn more about high-performance computing at campus.
Physics Colloquium
Michigan Technological University
Thursday, March 20, 2014
at 4:00 pm
Room 139 Fisher Hall
Asymmetric Wave Transport in Structures with Parity-Time symmetry
Tsampikos Kottos
Douglas J. and Midge Bowen Bennet Endowed Associate Professor Chair of Physics
Wesleyan University
Graduate Student Government Travel Grant Award Winners for Spring 2014
Travel grants for spring 2014 have been awarded. Among the Presenting Travel Grants ($ 250) recipients are physics graduate students Chad Brisbois, Kamal B. Dhungana, Boyi Hao, Joseph Niehaus, Bishnu Tiwari, Gaoxue Wang, and Kevin Waters.
The full list of graduate recipients can be accessed online.
Travel grants are awards that help subsidize cost of attending and presenting at conferences. These awards are sponsored by the Graduate Student Government (GSG) and the Graduate School. For more information on travel grants, please visit the webpage.
Should you have any questions, contact the GSG treasurer Jennifer Winikus (jawiniku@mtu.edu).
From Tech Today.
Professor John Jaszczak (Physics and A. E. Seaman Mineral Museum) published an article “Optically sector zoned (star) diamonds from Zimbabwe,” with co-authors J. Rakovan (Miami Univ.), E. Gaillou (Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County), J. E. Post (Smithsonian Institution) and J. Betts in the latest issue of Rocks and Minerals vol. 89 173-178 (2014).
DOI:10.1080/00357529.2014.842844
From Tech Today.
The Michigan Tech Lode spotlighted the Smithing Guild in the February 18, 2014, edition of the news. The article addresses the history of this relatively new student organization and its founder and current president, Adam Riederer. Riederer, a physics major, was interviewed in October 2013 in a Michigan Tech News article on blacksmithing.
Read the text version of the Lode article, by Evan Mayer.
Mac Brennan (Physics alum) and Joshua Pearce (MSE/ECE) co-authored an article in the journal Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells titled “Effects of spectral albedo on solar photovoltaic devices.”
From Tech Today.
See the Seniors Spring 2013 group photo in the Flickr site for the Department of Physics.