MRI-R2: Development of Instrumentation for Nanoscale Spatial and Time Resolved Microwave Studies at Variable Temperatures and Magnetic Fields

Northwestern University, Evanston IL

Investigators

Abstract

0960120 Chandrasekhar Northwestern U. Technical Summary: This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5). This project is for the development of a facility to enable low-temperature, time-, frequency- and spatially-resolved radiofrequency and microwave measurements for a wide variety of experiments in condensed matter and materials physics at Northwestern University. Four sets of experiments will be attempted during the project period: investigation of cross-correlation noise in mesoscopic devices; magnetization dynamics of nanoscale ferromagnets; time-of-flight measurements in Luttinger liquids in semiconductor devices; and persistent currents in normal metals. However, the usefulness of this new facility will extend far beyond these initial experiments, involving other groups at Northwestern, and enabling research groups at Northwestern to actively incorporate high-frequency techniques in their future experimental research plans. It will also allow undergraduate and graduate students and post-docs at Northwestern to gain familiarity with radio and microwave frequency techniques, a skill that is becoming increasing important in both academia and industry. Non-Technical Abstract: This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5). The increasing miniaturization of electronic circuitry that allows the development of fast computers and slim cell phones is also accompanied by a desire to make these devices work even smaller and faster. Reducing the size of device elements to the scale of nanometers--one billionth the size of a meter--presents new experimental challenges in trying to study their behavior at time scales of a nanosecond or shorter, time scales that are increasingly important for cutting-edge electronic devices. This project is devoted to developing instrumentation to study the behavior of nanoscale materials at frequencies starting at a few gigahertz, the frequencies at which the current fastest desktop computers operate, to a few tens of gigahertz. In addition to providing insight into better ways to make the next generation of nanoscale, high-frequency devices, the instrumentation that will be developed will enable experiments exploring fundamental quantum phenomena at high frequency, and in the process train the next generation of scientists and engineers in these essential techniques.