The Cooper pairing mechanism of heavy fermionsuperconductors, long thought to be due to spin fluctuations, has not yet been determined. It is the momentum space (k-space) structure of the superconducting energy gap Δ(k) that encodes specifics of this pairing mechanism. However, because the energy scales are so low, it has not been possible to directly measure Δ(k) for any heavy fermion superconductor.

Molybdenum disulfide (MoS2), a layered semiconducting material in transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs), as thin as a monolayer (consisting of a hexagonal plane of Mo atoms covalently bonded and sandwiched between two planes of S atoms, in a trigonal prismatic structure), has demonstrated unique properties and strong promises for emerging two-dimensional (2D) nanodevices.

We have measured optical second-harmonic generation (SHG) from atomically thin samples of MoS2 and h-BN with one to five layers. We observe strong SHG from materials with odd layer thickness, for which a noncentrosymmetric structure is expected, while the centrosymmetric materials with even layer thickness do not yield appreciable SHG. SHG for materials with odd layer thickness was measured as a function of crystal orientation.

Bilayer graphene has been a subject of intense study in recent years. The interlayer registry between the layers can have dramatic effects on the electronic properties: for example, in the presence of a perpendicular electric field, a band gap appears in the electronic spectrum of so-called Bernal-stacked graphene [Oostinga JB, et al. (2007) Nature Materials 7:151-157]. This band gap is intimately tied to a structural spontaneous symmetry breaking in bilayer graphene, where one of the graphene layers shifts by an atomic spacing with respect to the other.

A semi-analytical study of the acoustic radiation losses associated with various transverse vibration modes of a micromechanical (MEMS) annular resonator is presented. The quality factor, Q, of such resonators is of interest in many applications and depends on structural geometry, fluid-structure interaction, and the device encapsulation. Resonators with at least one surface exposed to air can display significant losses through acoustic radiation even at μm dimensions.

Quantum confinement plays an important role in the optical properties of semiconductor quantum dots (QDs). In this work, we combine experiment and modeling to systematically investigate the size dependence of the degenerate two-photon absorption (TPA) of below-band-gap radiation in CdSe QDs. The TPA coefficient β at 800 nm of CdSe QDs of varying radii was measured using femtosecond white-light transient absorption spectroscopy by probing the pump-induced bleaching at the first exciton transition energy.

As part of a joint Stanford/IBM effort to build a scanning SQUID microscopy user facility at Stanford, we have designed and fabricated three types of scanning SQUID microscope sensors. The first is a SQUID susceptometer, with a symmetric, gradiometric design, pickup loops with 0.1 micrometer minimum feature size integrated into the SQUID body through coaxially shielded leads, integrated flux modulation coils, and counterwound one-turn field coils.

Invention activities are Productive Failure activities in which students at- tempt to invent methods that capture deep properties of given data before being taught expert solutions. The current study evaluates the effect of scaffolding on the invention processes and outcomes, given that students are not expected to succeed in their inquiry and that all students receive subsequent instruction. Two Invention activities related to data analysis concepts were given to 130 undergraduate students in a first-year physics lab course using an interactive learning environment.

We focus on mesoscopic dislocation patterning via a continuum dislocation dynamics theory (CDD) in three dimensions (3D). We study three distinct physically motivated dynamics which consistently lead to fractal formation in 3D with rather similar morphologies, and therefore we suggest that this is a general feature of the 3D collective behavior of geometrically necessary dislocation (GND) ensembles. The striking self-similar features are measured in terms of correlation functions of physical observables, such as the GND density, the plastic distortion, and the crystalline orientation.