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Department of Physics and Astronomy

Colloquia

These lectures feature speakers from around the country and globe. Each colloquium lasts about an hour and gives you a deeper understanding of the types of physics and astronomy researching going on around the world.

Colloquia will be held in a hybrid format and a recurring Zoom link is provided to access the virtual format.

The talks will be on Thursdays at 4:15PM in the Rogers Room (Jones PSC 409), unless stated otherwise.

If you are interested in being added to our e-mail distribution list regarding upcoming colloquia, please contact Ms. Nancy Kesar via e-mail at nkesar@mailbox.sc.edu. We appreciate your interest!

Upcoming Colloquium:

Near-Field Microscopy in Moiré Graphene Heterostructures

Speaker: Petr Stepanov
Affiliation: Notre Dame
Date: 10/23/25

Abstract: 
The discovery of superconductivity in magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene (MATBG) has reshaped our understanding of correlated quantum materials. When two graphene sheets are stacked and twisted by just the right “magic” angle, their electronic bands flatten, giving rise to a playground of exotic quantum phenomena - including superconductivity, correlated insulating states, magnetic ordering, and nontrivial topological phases. Unlike traditional strongly correlated systems, these two-dimensional heterostructures offer remarkable experimental tunability: carrier density, dielectric screening, and proximity to metallic gates can all be precisely controlled, enabling systematic exploration of emergent electronic phases. In the first part of this talk, I will discuss ongoing puzzles in MATBG research - in particular, the discrepancies between transport and scanning tunneling microscopy measurements that challenge our understanding of the spatial localization and orbital nature of the flat-band states. To address these challenges, we have developed a new experimental approach based on local thermoelectric microscopy. Using a cryogenic near-field optical microscope with an infrared-illuminated oscillating AFM tip, we create a nanoscale thermal hot spot on the sample surface and measure the resulting local photovoltage. This allows us to spatially map variations in the Seebeck coefficient across the sample. Our results reveal a striking asymmetry in quasiparticle lifetimes across correlated minigaps - a possible signature of momentum-space localization effects in these flat-band systems. In the second part, I will present our recent microscopy studies of high-angle (~5.5°) twisted bilayer graphene (HATBG). Here, we directly visualize hybrid plasmon-phononpolaritons and use them to extract twist-angle–dependent group velocities in the electronic bands. These findings demonstrate a clear departure of HATBG from the conventional “monolayer-plus-monolayer” picture, shedding new light on the collective excitations and electronic structure in the regime beyond the magic angle.

Fall 2025 Schedule:

 

Date

Speaker

Affiliation

Title

08/28/25     Meet and Greet
09/04/25 Gabriel Cuomo Princeton University Line Defects in quantum field theory: from magnets to quarks 
09/11/25 Matthew Baumgart Arizona State University Dark Matter’s Michelson-Morley Moment
09/18/25 Chris Quigg Fermilab A Century of Noether’s Theorem
09/25/25 Alex Drlica-Wagner Fermilab Small Galaxies, Big Science: Fundamental Physics from the
Faintest Galaxies 
10/02/25 Kyle Leach Colorado School of Mines Hunting Ghosts with Rare Isotope Doped Quantum Sensors
10/16/25 Wayne Saslow Texas A&M University Three Velocity Dynamical Theory of Supersolids
10/23/25 Petr Stepanov Notre Dame Near-Field Microscopy in Moiré Graphene Heterostructures

Past Colloquia:

April 17, 2025 - Andrew Zangwill
"That’s Not Physic"

April 10, 2025 - Mikhail Shifman
"Paradigm change in modern high-energy physics"

April 3, 2025 - Riccardo Penco
"Tales of Point Particles: Effective Theories from Black Holes to Superfluids"

March 27, 2025 - Anatoly Dymarsky
"Code CFTs: where generalized symmetries, quantum gravity and quantum information meet"

March 20, 2025 - Hirohiku Shimizu
"Study of the Time Reversal Invariance in Polarized Epithermal Neutron Optics (J-PARC E99 : NOPTREX)"

February 27, 2025 - Craig Group
"Career and Mentoring Resources for Physicists"

February 13, 2025 - Xiaoxuan Chu
"An Overview of Spin Physics at STAR"

January 30, 2025 - Mehrnoosh Tahani
"Exploration of the Magnetized Cosmos: From Innovative Observatory Development to Multi-Wavelength Field Mapping"

January 27, 2025 - Michael Busch
"Shedding Light on the Dark Molecular Gas in the Galaxy and Beyond"

January 21, 2025 - Priyanka Chakraborty
"Probing the Universe’s Extremes: XRISM’s Precision X-ray Insights and JWST’s View of Early Galaxies"

January 16, 2025 - Mark W. Meisel
"How are “Discoveries” Made? - A “condensed” perspective"

April 20, 2023 - Dr. Sebastian König
"Nuclear Physics in a Box"

April 13, 2023 - Dr. Qui Wang
"Onsager Principle, Mathematical Modeling, and Numerical Algorithm Design"

April 06, 2023 - Dr. Maxim Tsoi
"Antiferromagnetic Spintronics: from Metals to Functional Oxides"

March 23, 2023 - Dr. David Tanner
"Shining Light Through Walls:  Generation and Detection of Axions with ALPS II"

March 16, 2023 - Dr. Kai Schweda
"The ALICE Experiment at the Large Hadron Collider"

March 02, 2023 - Dr. John Singleton
"Neutral Fermions and a New State of Matter: Weird Metals Disguised as Electrical Insulators"

February 23, 2023 - Dr. George Androulakis
"An Excursion into Quantum Information, with Highlights from Some of My Latest Research"

February 16, 2023 - Dr. Christopher Jarzynski
"Scaling Down the Laws of Thermodynamics"

February 9, 2023 - Dr. Ed Cackett
"Mapping the Accretion Disk Around Supermassive Black Holes"

February 2, 2023 - Dr. Alexander Monin
"XXI Century Challenges of Theoretical Physics"

January 26, 2023 - Dr. Lori Ziolkowski
"The Physics of Climate Change"

January 19, 2023 - Dr. Joseph E. Johnson
"Riemannian Geometry Framed as a Generalized Lie Algebra to Incorporate General Relativity with Quantum Theory"

November 17, 2022 - Dr. Ignatios Antoniadis
"Challenges in Particle Physics and Cosmology"

November 10, 2022 - Dr. Gang Cao
"Power and Control of Internal Loop Currents in an Exotic Quantum State"

November 3, 2022 - Dr. Shmuel Nussinov
"Dark Matter - or Matter in the Dark?"

October 27, 2022 - Dr. Mariama Rebello de Sousa Dias
"Advancements in the Design of Optical Components for Efficient Optoelectronic Devices Operating at High Temperature"

October 20, 2022 - Dr. Bob Bernstein
"Charged Lepton Flavor Violation and the Mu2e Experiment"

October 6, 2022 - Dr. Paul Reimer
"Exploring the Flavor Asymmetry of Antimatter in the Proton"

September 29, 2022 - Dr. Michael Dickson
"Anthropic Principles, Fine-Tuning Arguments, and Other Mistakes"

September 22, 2022 - Dr. Alexander Yankovsky
"Dynamics of Coastal Buoyancy Currents"

September 15, 2022 - Dr. Alexey Petrov
"Charming Asymmetry Between Matter and Antimatter"

December 2, 2021 - Dr. Jeffrey Hazboun
"Searching for Nanohertz Gravitational Waves with a Galactic-Scale Detector"

November 18, 2021 - Dr. David Ceperley
"The Physics of Dense Hydrogen"

November 11, 2021 - Mr. Travis Dore
"The Quark Gluon Plasma:  Exploring a Physics Crossroads"

November 4, 2021 - Dr. Frank T. Avignone, III
"The Search for the Majorana Neutrino Under an Italian Mountain"

October 14, 2021 - Dr. Jerome Goldstein
"Is Diffusion Described by the Heat Equation or the Damped Wave Equation"?

September 16, 2021 - Dr. Robert Cava
"Finding New Materials - A Chemical Perspective"

April 29, 2021 - Dr. Michael Susner
"Functional Van der Waals Materials:  A New Avenue for Next-Generation Electronics"

April 1, 2021 - Dr. James Tour
"Flash Graphene"

March 18, 2021 - Dr. Hariharan Srikanth
"Anisotropic Magnetic Particles for Nanomedicine Applications"

March 11, 2021 - Dr. Rongying Jin
"Topological Physics:  Entering a New Era of Fundamental Science"

March 4, 2021 - Dr. Luis Balicas
"Two-Dimensional and Topological Materials Research at the NHMFL"

January 21, 2021 - Dr. Larry Ford
"Quantum Energy Density Fluctuations"

November 19, 2020 - Dr. Pawel Mazur
"On the Physical Nature of Super-Compact Objects in the Merging Binaries Discovered by Gravitational Wave Detectors"

November 12, 2020 - Dr. Michael Osofsky
"Engineering Superconductivity in Metamaterials"

October 22, 2020 - Dr. Rocky Kolb
"Schrödinger’s Alarming Phenomenon"

October 8, 2020 - Dr. Yuriy Pershin
"Are Resistance Switching Memories Memristors?"

February 27, 2020 - Dr. Thomas Crawford, Dr. Scott Crittenden, and Dr. Yanwen Wu
"Research Directions at the SmartState Center for Experimental Nanoscale Physics (Experimental)"

February 20, 2020 - Dr. Yaroslaw Bazaliy and Dr. Yuriy Pershin
"Research Directions at the SmartState Center  for Experimental Nanoscale Physics (Theoretical)"

February 13, 2020 - Dr. Ward Plummer
"Quantum Materials Driven Renaissance in Surface Physics"

February 6, 2020 - Dr. Smita Mathur
"The Warm-Hot Circumgalactic Medium"

January 30, 2020 - Dr. Richard Creswick
"A Laboratory Search for Axions/ALPS"

December 5, 2019 - Dr. William E. Mustain
"Founding and Emerging Materials for Li-ion Batteries"

November 21, 2019 - Dr. Dennis Bodewits
"Atomic and Molecular Physics of Comets"

November 14, 2019 - Dr. Daniel Scolnic
"New Excitement in Measurements of Dark Energy and the Hubble Constant"

October 31, 2019 - Dr. Varsha Kulkarni
"Extrasolar Planets:  Understanding Earth's Place in the Cosmos"

October 3, 2019 - Dr. J. Michael Shull
"Where Do Galaxies End"?

September 26, 2019 - Dr. Craig Group
"A Renaissance for Muon Physics:  (Who Ordered That?)"

September 19, 2019 - Dr. Peter Mättig
"Beyond the Higgs:  LHC Physics in the Light of Philosophy"

September 5, 2019 - Dr. Revaz Ramazashvili
"Zeeman Spin-Orbit Coupling and Magnetic Quantum Oscillations in Antiferromagnetic Conductors"

May 7, 2019 - Dr. Laurie E. McNeil
"Transforming Teaching and Learning:  Self-Renewal and Institution-Building"

April 25, 2019 - Dr. Megan Donahue
"The Role of Supermassive Black Holes in the Growth of Galaxies"

April 18, 2019 - Dr. Monique Aller
"Investigating the Dust Grains in Galaxies Using Quasar Absorption Systems"

April 11, 2019 - Dr. Massimiliano Di Ventra
"Memcomputing:  Leaveraging Memory and Physics to Compute Efficiently"

April 4, 2019 - Dr. Leonid Pryadko
"Quantum Computation and Quantum Error Correction:  A Contemporary Overview"

March 28, 2019 - Dr. Oleg Tchernyshyov
"Mechanics of Magnetic Solitons"

March 21, 2019 - Dr. Ashot Gasparian
"The Proton Radius: Preliminary Results from the PRad Experiment"

March 7, 2019 - Dr. Raul Briceno
"The Exotic World of Quarks and Gluons"

March 4, 2019 - Dr. Alexander Monin
"Current Challenges of Particle Physics and How to Address Them"

February 28, 2019 - Dr. Karen Livesey
"Magnetization Relaxation in Magnetic Nanoparticle Systems"

February 25, 2019 - Dr. Andrey Katz
"Beyond the Standard Model:  Search for a Shadow World"

February 18, 2019 - Dr. Kimberly Boddy
"Unraveling the Structure of Dark Matter Throughout Cosmic History"

February 7, 2019 - Dr. Igor Altfeder
"Scanning Tunneling Microscopy of Quantum Materials"

January 31, 2019
"Remembering Dr. Horacio Farach"

December 6, 2018 - Dr. Yanwen Wu
"Tools Made of Light - An Overview of the Ideas Behind the 2018 Physics Nobel Prize"

November 29, 2018 - Prof. Valery Nesvizhevsky
"Gravitational Quantum States of Neutrons, Atoms, and Antiatoms"

November 15, 2018 - Ms. Lisa Hunter and Mr. Rafael Palomino
"ISEE's Professional Development Program: Preparation for Effective and Inclusive Teaching and Mentoring"

November 8, 2018 - Dr. Sylvester N. Ekpenuma
"Efficient Modeling of Defects and Impurities in Semiconductors"

November 2, 2018 - Dr. Arthur Hebard
"Heterogeneous Interfaces with High-Tc Crystalline Bi-2212 for Teasing Out Proximity and Electric-Field Screening Effects"

October 25, 2018 - Dr. Marco Ajello
"The Star-Formation History of the Universe Revealed by Gamma Rays"

October 4, 2018 - Dr. Luca Guazzotto
"A Physics-Based Criterion for Nuclear Fusion Energy Production"

September 27, 2018 - Dr. Pawel Mazur
"Superfluid Universe, the Ground State in Quantum Gravity, and Gravastars"

September 20, 2018 - Dr. Frank Avignone, III
"Dark Matter from Z to A and Beyond:  The History and Status of Direct Searches"

September 6, 2018 - Dr. Nahum Arav
"Quasar Outflows and Their Contribution to Galactic-Scale Feedback Processes"

April 26, 2018 - Dr. Yordanka Ilieva
"Gluon Imaging"

April 19, 2018 - Dr. Robin Shelton
"The Clouds Around Our Galaxy"

April 12, 2018 - Dr. Vincente Guiseppe
"The (76)Ge Program to Search for Neutrinoless Double-Beta Decay"

April 5, 2018 - Dr. Yanwen Wu
"Make Your Particles And Play With Them Too"

March 29, 2018 - Dr. Dean Lee
"Nuclear Lattice Simulations"

March 8, 2018 - Prof. Sergey Alekhin
"Strange, Non-Strange, and Heavy Quark Distributions"

March 1, 2018 - Dr. Joseph E. Johnson
"On Integrating General Relativity with Quantum Theory by Reframing Riemannian Geometry as a Generalized Heisenberg Lie Algebra”

February 22, 2018 - Dr. Alessandro Pilloni
“Challenges for Hadron Spectroscopy”

February 15, 2018 - Dr. David B. Tanner
“The Search for the Invisible Axion: The Current Status of ADMX”

February 1, 2018 - Dr. Andrew B. Greytak
“Assembling the Future Through Control of Nanoscale Interfaces”

January 25, 2018 - Dr. Ronald D. Edge
“70 Years of Physics”

January 18, 2018 - Dr. Juan I. Collar
“News from PICO and COHERENT”

 


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