Monash SPA Public Lecture – Michael Fuhrer

Tying Electrons into Knots: The New Science of Topological Materials

FLEET Director, Professor Michael Fuhrer, will be presenting the August lecture in the monthly public lecture series hosted by the Monash University School of Physics & Astronomy.

All welcome! See flyer here.

The pre-lecture activity begins at 6:30 pm. The lecture begins at 6:50 pm.

ABSTRACT:

Until recently it was thought that every material could be classified into one of two types: metals, which conduct electricity, and insulators, which don’t. Recently physicists proposed and then discovered a new type: topological insulators, which are insulating in their interior but conduct along their surfaces or edges, a discovery which was recognised by the 2016 Nobel Prize in Physics. I will describe why quantum mechanics makes some materials metals and others insulators, and try to convey how topology makes some insulators different from others. I will also talk about the important role that new topological materials may play in reducing the energy used in computing devices.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER:
Professor Michael Fuhrer is an ARC Laureate Fellow in the School of Physics at Monash University. Michael directs the ARC Centre of Excellence for Future Low-Energy Electronics Technologies (FLEET) and co-directs the Monash Centre for Atromically Thin Materials. Prior to coming to Monash, Michael directed the Center for Nanophysics and Advanced Materials at the University of Maryland. Michael is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Physical Society.