“Graphene: a Physicist’s View of the ‘Wonder Material'”

Within the eight years since its first scotch-tape extraction from graphite, Graphene – a one atom-thick crystal of carbon – has metamorphosed from the poor relative of diamond into a “wonder material” whose appeal crossed disciplinary boundaries from physics and engineering to biology and medicine. At the beginning of 2013 the European Commission pledged one billion € to seed a European “Graphene valley”, designed to bring graphene and related layered materials from academic laboratories into the public domain to revolutionize industries and stimulate economic growth.

In this talk I will review the physics of graphene with emphasis on the unusual electronic properties which stem from its ultra-relativistic charge carriers – Dirac fermions. I will describe experiments which employed transport, scanning tunneling microscopy and spectroscopy to gain access to the fascinating world of two-dimensional Dirac fermions, their interactions with each other and with the environment.

Time: 4:00 pm
Place: Room 10-250

Refreshments @ 3:30 pm in 4-349 (The Pappalardo Community Room)