Undergraduate Research
Active Research in the Yale Physics Department
Research Opportunities
Keith BakerContact: Keith Baker (oliver.baker@yale.edu) Website: https://physics.yale.edu/people/keith-baker In-lab opportunities Quantum Information Science at the Energy and Intensity Frontiers in High Energy Physics |
Charles BaltayContact: Charles Baltay (charles.baltay@yale.edu) Website: http://hep.yale.edu/people/charles-baltay Remote opportunities Astrophysics/Cosmology experiment to study the acceleration of the expansion of the Universe and the nature of Dark Energy. The experiment has two parts, one space based and one ground based |
Sean BarrettContact: Sean Barrett (sean.barrett@yale.edu) Website: https://opnmr.physics.yale.edu/ In-lab opportunities Doing more with less: Accelerating multidimensional NMR and MRI experiments using iterated maps. |
Meng ChengContact: Meng Cheng (m.cheng@yale.edu"> m.cheng@yale.edu) Website: https://meng-cheng.github.io/ Remote opportunities Two projects, defects in condensed matter and many-body open quantum systems. Directed reading on related topics, e.g. Topological phases of matter. |
Sarah DemersContact: Sarah Demers (sarah.demers@yale.edu"> sarah.demers@yale.edu) Website: https://demerslab.yale.edu/ Remote opportunities Working on the Mu2e Experiment trigger and commissioning, based at FNAL for the summer, or if during the semester, based at Yale. |
Steven GirvinContact: Steven Girvin ( steven.girvin@yale.edu) Website: https://girvin.sites.yale.edu/ In-lab opportunities Theory of quantum control of qubits and oscillators. Analytical and numerical modeling to develop techniques to efficiently control the states of qubits (spins) and oscillators using microwave pulses. Prerequisite: PHYS 440 Co-requisite: PHYS 441. |
Walter GoldbergerContact: Walter Goldberger ( walter.goldberger@yale.edu) Website: https://het.yale.edu In-lab and remote opportunities I would be happy to meet regularly with an advance undergraduate or two to do some directed reading in theoretical physics. While I do not have a specific research project in mind currently that is accessible to undergrads, it is possible that some interesting problem worth pursuing might come up in the course of our readings. |
Jack HarrisContact: Jack Harris ( jack.harris@yale.edu) Website: https://harrislab.yale.edu/ In-lab and remote opportunities
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Helen Caines & Laura HavenerContact: Laura Havener ( laura.havener@yale.edu) Website: https://rhig.physics.yale.edu/ In-lab and remote opportunities **Hardware Projects** We have various hardware R&D projects in the group related to preparing for the future Electron-Ion Collider. The EIC is a future collider coming at BNL that will study how quarks and gluons are arranged inside of nuclei, including how the nucleon mass and spin arise from this complex structure. In anticipation of the EIC, detectors need to be constructed. Our group is helping with R&D for various subsystems of the future ePIC detector. We have projects in the group contributing to these R&D efforts that will involve designing and/or testing aspects of experimental setups for these subsystems in Wright Laboratory. Examples of projects include:
**Software Projects** We study the strong interaction described by Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD). We use a high-energy QCD probe called a jet to study QCD in high-energy particle colliders (RHIC at BNL and LHC at CERN). For example, we are interested in studying the quark and gluon soup produced in high-energy collisions of heavy ions, the internal dynamics of nuclei, and the evolution of quarks and gluons into hadrons. These projects involve running Monte Carlo simulations of jets to explore aspects of their production and evolution:
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Karsten HeegerContact: Karsten Heeger (karsten.heeger@yale.edu) Website: https://heegerlab.yale.edu In-lab and remote opportunities
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Steven KoneznyContact: Lane Healy ( lane.healy@yale.edu) Website: https://konezny.sites.yale.edu/ In-lab opportunities Materials for solar energy conversion applicationsProject 1. Device Design and Characterization for Energy-Related Materials This project involves studying charge transport in materials for solar energy conversion using various device architectures and methods. The student will learn thin-film fabrication and microscopy characterization methods, how to design and deposit electrodes, and useful techniques in the west campus clean room such as photolithography and optical profilometry. Project 2. Theory of Charge Transport in Nanostructured Materials Studying charge transport is important from a fundamental physics perspective, but also can provide guidance for material design. This project involves studying the mechanisms of charge transport important to nanostructured materials used for solar energy conversion. The student will learn how to apply these models to temperature-dependent electrical data. Programming experience recommended. Project 3. Temperature-Dependent Charge Transport Measurements in Energy Materials Our lab on west campus has a cryostat capable of accessing temperatures between ~7 and 315 K. By measuring the conductivity of materials in this range, one can decipher the mechanism of charge transport and learn valuable information about improving device performance. Because important materials for energy applications are often highly porous by design for achieving high surface area, conductivities are often very low. The cryostat is therefore equipped with highly sensitive electrical equipment capable of measuring currents on the order of femtoamps. This project is a study of charge transport as a function of temperature under various light and ambient gas conditions. Prior experience in LabView and Python would be helpful, though experience can be swapped for an interest to learn. Project 4. Impedance Spectroscopy for Studying Materials for Energy Applications Studying the resistance and capacitance properties of a material upon application of an ac signal can potentially provide much more information than dc methods. These data can be fit with an equivalent circuit model, each component of which corresponding to a particular physical process in the device. This project is an application of this powerful method, which allows complicated systems such as thin-film devices or electrochemical cells to be studied systematically. Some programming experience will be useful. |
Steve LamoreauxContact: Steve Lamoreaux ( steve.lamoreaux@yale.edu) Website: https://lamoreauxgroup.yale.edu/ In-lab and remote opportunities We currently have one undergrad and would like one more.
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Konrad LehnertContact: Konrad Lehnert ( konrad.lehnert@yale.edu) Website: https://physics.yale.edu/people/konrad-lehnert In-lab opportunities Current Interests:
Interested in adding an undergraduate to my group but haven’t thought in detail about the project during my lab building and set up. I plan to begin discussions with students in the early spring. |
Christopher LynnContact: Christopher Lynn ( christopher.lynn@yale.edu) Website: https://lynnlab.yale.edu/ In-lab and remote opportunities We are interested in understanding how structure and function emerge in complex living systems, particularly the brain. We study how individual neurons interact to form networks; how whole-brain activity orchestrates cognition; and how humans communicate to process information. We approach these problems from a statistical physics perspective: seeking to identify the key minimal ingredients that combine to produce collective macroscopic phenomena. |
Chiara MingarelliContact: Bjorn Larsen ( bjorn.larsen@yale.edu) Website: http://www.chiaramingarelli.com/ In-lab and remote opportunities Undergraduate students are welcome to apply to work with the Mingarelli Lab on the detection of supermassive black hole binary systems. |
Simon MochrieContact: Simon Mochrie ( simon.mochrie@yale.edu) Website: https://mochrielab.yale.edu/ In-lab and remote opportunities To build a lattice simulation of the chromatin polymers inside the nucleus of a yeast cell, including volume exclusion and looping. |
David MooreContact: David Moore ( david.c.moore@yale.edu) Website: https://campuspress.yale.edu/moorelab/ In-lab opportunities We have projects aiming to test fundamental physics at the precision frontier of nuclear and particle physics. Ongoing projects are in either searching for neutrinoless double beta decay (nEXO) or using levitated optomechanical sensors as probes of new physics (SIMPLE). |