Leo Li

By Valerie DeLaCámara

 

The US Department of Defense announced that Jia (Leo) Li is among awardees Under the Defense Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (DEPSCoR) for his work on emergent quantum phenomena in van der Waals 2D materials.

The project, “Probing Electron Nematicity in Multilayer Graphene Heterostructures,” features the collaboration between Professor Li from the Department of Physics and Professor Rubenstein from the Department of Chemistry. The goal of the project is to examine electronic anisotropy in multilayer graphene, which, unlike the oft-studied orthorhombic anisotropy arising from quadrupole distortion, is “dominated by a different mechanism that will shed new light on the unique nature of electronic orders in van der Waals materials,” according to the researchers.

The proposed research will contribute to DoD’s mission by increasing fundamental knowledge of novel electronic properties resulting from the interplay among Coulomb correlation, Cooper pairing, and magnetism. Such novel electronic phenomena promise to revolutionize the design of future quantum sensors and quantum circuits.

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More information about DEPSCoR