Vidya Madhavan Explained

Vidya Madhavan
Workplaces:Boston College
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
University of California, Berkeley
Alma Mater:Indian Institutes of Technology
Boston University

Vidya Madhavan is an Indian American physicist who is Professor of Condensed Matter at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Her research considers the spin and charge of quantum materials. She combines high resolution characterization techniques with precise fabrication and growth techniques. She was elected Fellow of the American Physical Society in 2015.

Early life and education

Madhavan studied metallurgical engineering at the Indian Institutes of Technology.[1] She remained there for her graduate studies, where she worked on solid state physics and materials science.[2] She moved to the United States for her doctoral research, where she joined Boston University.[3] After earning her PhD, Madhavan joined the University of California, Berkeley as a postdoctoral researcher.

Research and career

In 2002 Madhavan was appointed to the faculty at Boston College, where she found that phonons (lattice vibrations) were involved in superconductivity.[4] She moved to the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign as a professor in 2014. Her research considers the interaction between spin, charge and structure in quantum materials. She has developed (spin-polarized) scanning tunnelling microscopy to understand emergent phenomena in unconventional superconductors, topological systems and two-dimensional materials. She has studied unconventional superconductors (with a focus on chiral superconductors), which maintain their superconductivity when in the presence of high magnetic fields likely due to the presence of Majorana particles on their surfaces. Madhavan used STM to identify these Majorana quasiparticles on the surface of uranium ditelluride.[5] [6]

Topological insulators exhibit spin momentum locking, a quantum phenomenon in which the spin of an electron depends on its direction of travel. Madhavan has observed spin-polarized tunnelling in anti-feromagnets.[7]

Madhavan has pursued quantum systems with long lifetimes for quantum information science. She is particularly interested in Mott insulators, which can be fabricated using exfoliation and controlled using lithography. She has demonstrated that they can achieve lifetimes of a few seconds at room temperature.[8]

Awards and honors

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Communications . Grainger Engineering Office of Marketing and . Vidya Madhavan . 2024-05-08 . iquist.illinois.edu . en.
  2. Anecdotes and Science: Musings on My Career Path by Prof Vidya Madhavan University of Illinois . en . 2024-05-08 . www.youtube.com.
  3. Web site: Communications . Grainger Engineering Office of Marketing and . Vidya Madhavan . 2024-05-08 . physics.illinois.edu . en.
  4. Web site: Boston College physicists find new explanation for superconductivity's 'glue' . 2024-05-08 . EurekAlert! . en.
  5. Web site: Communications . Grainger Engineering Office of Marketing and . New measurements reveal evidence of elusive particles in a newly-discovered superconductor . 2024-05-08 . grainger.illinois.edu . en.
  6. Web site: Suplee . Anne . The Many Wonders of Uranium Ditelluride – UMD Physics . 2024-05-08 . umdphysics.umd.edu . en-us.
  7. Aishwarya . Anuva . Cai . Zhuozhen . Raghavan . Arjun . Romanelli . Marisa . Wang . Xiaoyu . Li . Xu . Gu . G. D. . Hirsbrunner . Mark . Hughes . Taylor . Liu . Fei . Jiao . Lin . Madhavan . Vidya . 2022-09-09 . Spin-selective tunneling from nanowires of the candidate topological Kondo insulator SmB 6 . Science . en . 377 . 6611 . 1218–1222 . 10.1126/science.abj8765 . 0036-8075. 2209.04993 .
  8. Aishwarya . Anuva . Raghavan . Arjun . Howard . Sean . Cai . Zhuozhen . Thakur . Gohil S. . Won . Choongjae . Cheong . Sang-Wook . Felser . Claudia . Madhavan . Vidya . 2022-05-31 . Long-lifetime spin excitations near domain walls in 1T-TaS 2 . Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences . en . 119 . 22 . 10.1073/pnas.2121740119 . 0027-8424 . 9296906 . 35617430.
  9. Web site: APS Fellow Archive . 2024-05-08 . www.aps.org . en.
  10. Web site: Vidya Madhavan . 2024-05-08 . CIFAR . en-US.
  11. Web site: Investigator Detail . 2024-05-08 . www.moore.org.
  12. Web site: 2024-05-08 . Vidya Madhavan American Academy of Arts and Sciences . 2024-05-08 . www.amacad.org . en.
  13. Web site: Forrest . Sharita . Three Illinois scientists elected to American Academy of Arts and Sciences . 2024-05-08 . news.illinois.edu . en-US.