Inside conventional materials like metals and semiconductors, electrons are evenly distributed — like liquid filling a container. But electrons inside many quantum materials act more like an exotic gumbo: Nanoscale images show that the electrons form complex shapes with interesting textures on scales of multiple lengths.

Carlson will discuss how understanding the formation of these patterns is vital to our understanding of electronic properties and to our eventual technological control of quantum matter. We have defined new paradigms for interpreting and understanding nanoscale electronic textures observed at the surface of these materials by employing theoretical tools from fractal mathematics and disordered statistical mechanics. This new conceptual framework has enabled the discovery of universal, fractal electronic textures across several types of quantum matter.

Erica W. Carlson is Professor of Physics at Purdue University. Prof. Carlson holds a BS in physics from California Institute of Technology, and completed a PhD in Physics at UCLA in 2000. After pursuing postdoctoral work at Boston University, she joined the faculty at Purdue in 2003. Prof. Carlson's research is in theoretical condened matter physics, focusing on the electronic properties of novel materials. Just as solid, liquid, and gas are different phases of matter, electrons inside of materials have their own phases of matter and phase transitions. Prof. Carlson uses theoretical techniques from statistical mechanics and quantum mechanics to explore new electronic phases of matter.

President's Colloquia

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

• Erica W. Carlson (2019), "Fractal Views on Quantum Materials," https://nanohub.org/resources/30447.

  BibTex | EndNote

1. fractals
2. joes picks
3. nanoelectronics
4. quantum materials