Course info

SUPERVISORS

Luca Perfetti
LSI, Ecole Polytechnique, 91128 Palaiseau cedex
Tel : 01 69 33 45 56 - Fax : 01 69 33 45 54
Email : luca.perfetti@polytechnique.edu

 

PRESENTATION

This research internship aims to introduce modern condensed matter physics, which is both an endless source of subjects for fundamental research and gives rise to countless technological advances. The diversity of materials, the complexity of artificial structures that we know how to make, the extreme conditions to be met, all this makes the condensed matter one of the most wide and varied branch, as well as a sector in continuous renewal as it is in direct contact with the latest technologies.

The research internship takes place in a state-of-the-art laboratory where the intern will get acquainted with a growing field of physics; learn new concepts, new techniques, both experimental and theorical. Finally, they can make the experience of what is research, a field where creativity and imagination are essential qualities, getting off the beaten track the daily lot.

 

EXAMPLE OF PROPOSED PROBLEMS

- Materials with strange properties, to explore, understand and design the properties and mechanisms that is responsible: high-temperature superconductors, spin ladders, materials with colossal magnetoresistance, nanostructured and self-assembly materials, etc. that raise a lot of questions: quantum phase transition, dynamics of electronic correlation, electronic and magnetic fluctuations, etc.

- Nanostructures and mesoscopic physics: with very small artificial structures, we enter a world between macroscopic and microscopic, where reigns quantum mechanics. Coherent electronic transport in molecules, carbon nanotubes, two-dimensional layers of graphene or semiconductors; superconductivity and proximity magnetism; statistical properties of charge or spin transfer; elemental cells for quantum computer, based on Josephson junctions or single-electron transistors; spin dynamics in magnetic nanostructures, etc.

 

EXAMPLE OF TECHNIQUES USED

According their choice, the intern will face techniques from a wide range (detection, development, characterization): ultra-low noise electronics, nuclear magnetic resonance, electron paramagnetic resonance, ultrafast optic microscopy, electron microscope, X ray and synchrotron radiation, scanning tunneling or atomic force microscopy, photons, electrons or mass spectroscopy, photoemission, nanoelectron lithography and nanofabrication in white room, molecular-beam epitaxy, cryogenics, intense magnetic fields, high pressure, etc.

Students that have theorical can do their research internship on modeling or simulation of modern phenomena in modern condensed matter physics. Theorical approaches use statistic physics and quantum mechanics methods (analytical and/or digital) of systems with a large of number of degrees of freedom.

 

Course language: French