Mesoscopic and Nano Physics Laboratory

Dragomir Davidovic

School of Physics

Welcome to our laboratory at the Georgia Tech School of physics, headed by Prof. Dragomir Davidovic. Our site has several audiences in mind. It is intended to attract a small open community of students and colleagues to our field, our research, and our collaborators. Our laboratory specializes in nanoscale and mesoscale physics (nanophysics and mesoscopics).

What is Mesoscopics?

The field of mesoscopics emerged in the 1980s, in response to rapid miniaturization of electronics. At that time, electron-beam lithography was discovered, which made it possible to create structures smaller than a micrometer (one-millionth of a meter). So, already in the 80s, scientists and electronic industry were wandering about the feature-size limitations of electronics. 

At very low temperatures (well below 1K or -273 degree Celsius), micron-scale resistors become very different from ordinary resistors. For example, the Ohms-law becomes invalid. Similarly, in this regime entirely new devices become possible, such as single-electron transistors. The field of physics that investigates micron scale samples at low temperatures is known as Mesoscopic Physics.

Figure of a mesoscopic sample: a gold wire 50 nanometer in diameter placed on a silicon chip, shaped into a Georgia-Tech logo, using electron beam lithography at the School of Physics.

What is Nanophysics?

More recently, electronic industry is pushing for a feature size well below a micrometer. Nowadays, the feature size is measured in nanometers (one-thousandth of a micrometer). Even at room temperature, nanometer-scale samples behave unusually. For example, gold nanoparticles can be oxidized, whereas a large piece of gold cannot. Nanophysics is the field of physics that investigates nanometer-scale samples. The field is rapidly developing, and has taken many new directions. Today, nanophysics overlaps with other research fields, such as nanotechnology, biophysics, and chemistry.