Eric Sembrat's Test Bonanza

Georgia Tech researchers conducted the first field study showing how endangered loggerhead sea turtle hatchlings use their limbs to move quickly on a variety of terrains in order to reach the ocean.

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The ability to determine the rotational orientation of graphene sheets and map strain is useful for
understanding the electronic and transport properties of multiple layers of graphene, a one-atom
thick form of carbon with potentially revolutionary semiconducting properties. The research
appears in the journal, Physical Review B, in volume 81, issue 12.

In digital photography, moiré (pronounced mwar-ray) patterns occur because of errors in the
rendering process, which causes grid patterns to look wavy or distorted. Materials scientists have
been using microscopic moiré patterns to detect stresses such as wrinkles or bulges in a variety
of materials.

Researchers created graphene on the surface of a silicon carbide substrate at the Georgia Institute
of Technology by heating one side so that only carbon, in the form of multilayer sheets of
graphene, was left. Using a custom-built scanning tunneling microscope at NIST, the researchers
were able to peer through the topmost layers of graphene to the layers beneath. This process,
which the group dubbed "atomic moiré interferometry," enabled them to image the patterns
created by the stacked graphene layers, which in turn allowed the group to model how the
hexagonal lattices of the individual graphene layers were stacked in relation to one another.
Unlike other materials that tend to stretch out when they cool, graphene bunches up like a
wrinkled bed sheet. The researchers were able to map these stress fields by comparing the
relative distortion of the hexagons of carbon atoms that comprise the individual graphene layers.
Their technique is so sensitive that it is able to detect strains in the graphene layers causing as
little as a 0.1 percent change in atom spacing.

"There's an ideal atomic lattice spacing in graphene. Knowing the strain distribution can help us
in our efforts to create graphene with good electronic properties," said Phillip N. First, professor
in the School of Physics at Georgia Tech. "So far, it looks as if multi-layered graphene has
excellent conduction properties and may be useful for electronic applications."
This collaboration between Georgia Tech and NIST is part of a series of experiments aimed at
gaining a fundamental understanding of the properties of graphene. Other examples of the
group's work can been seen at www.mrs.org/s_mrs/bin.asp?CID=8684&DID=320520&DOC=FILE.PDF and
www.mrs.org/s_mrs/bin.asp?CID=26616&DID=320529&DOC=FILE.PDF
Their article, "Structural analysis of multilayer graphene via atomic moiré interferometry" was
selected as an Editor's Highlight in Physical Review B for the month of March, 2010.

CoS in the News, Mark Esser and David Terraso(writers)

Scientists have made a breakthrough toward creating nanocircuitry on graphene, widely regarded as the most promising candidate to replace silicon as the building block of transistors. They have devised a simple and quick one-step process based on thermochemical nanolithography (TCNL) for creating nanowires, tuning the electronic properties of reduced graphene oxide on the nanoscale and thereby allowing it to switch from being an insulating material to a conducting material.

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Assistant Professor Daniel Goldman’s team at the Georgia Institute of Technology decided to find out how sandfish, once submerged, tucks its limbs into its sides and propels itself forward by wiggling from side to side.

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Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology and the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory "write" nanoribbons on a surface rather than cutting graphene.

Walt de Heer wins the 2010 MRS Medal "For his pioneering contributions to the science and technology of epitaxial graphene."

Currently a Regents' Professor of Physics at the Georgia Institute of Technology, he directs the Epitaxial Graphene Laboratory in the School of Physics and leads the Epitaxial Graphene Interdisciplinary Research Group at the Georgia Tech Materials Research Science and Engineering Center.

De Heer and his research groups have made significant contributions to several areas in nanoscopic physics. In 1995, De Heer’s research turned to carbon nanotubes, showing that they are excellent field emitters with potential application to flat panel displays. In 1998, he discovered that carbon nanotubes are ballistic conductors, which is a key property for graphene-based electronics. In 2001, his work led to the development of graphene-based electronics. This project was funded by Intel Corporation in 2003 and by the National Science Foundation (NSF) in 2004. His paper, Ultrathin Epitaxial Graphite: Two-Dimensional Electron Gas Properties and a Route Towards Graphene-Based Electronics, published in 2004, laid the experimental and conceptual foundation for graphene-based electronics. De Heer holds the first patent for graphene-based electronics that was provisionally filed in June 2003.

Georgia Tech Press Release:
http://www.gatech.edu/newsroom/release.html?nid=63022

Shina Tan has been awarded the 2010 George E. Valley Prize by the American Physical Society “For the exact relations he derived for Strongly Interacting Fermi gases with large scattering length, which are found to be of fundamental importance in cold atom physics.” 

He joined the School of Physics of the Georgia Institute of Technology as an Assistant Professor in August of 2010.  Tan's major research interests to date have been the general quantum many-body problem and the few-body physics of ultracold atoms and molecules.  By inventing a new set of generalized functions, Tan solved the equivalent of the ultraviolet divergence problem for the strongly interacting Fermi gas with large scattering length and derived a set of exact relations for the energy, momentum distribution, and pair correlation function. The latter are now called the "Tan relations".   His results demonstrated that the behavior of the momentum distribution far away from the Fermi surface plays an essential role. Prof. Tan's research has significantly impacted both experimental and theoretical research in the field of cold atoms.

A discovery by Paul Sheehan of the Naval Research Laboratory, Elisa Riedo at Georgia Institute of Technology and their colleagues paints a prettier picture of how graphene-based semiconductors might be built in the near future.  For further information see: http://www.sys-con.com/node/1445659.

Ryan Maladen, a doctoral candidate in the bioengineering program at Georgia Tech, won the best paper award at the 2010 Robotics Science and Systems (RSS) conference held June 27-30, 2010, at the Universidad de Zaragoza in Zaragoza, Spain.

(Georgia Tech Press Release, July 12, 2010)