Faculty invited to President's Colloquia presentation on April 17

Faculty members are encouraged to attend the final President's Colloquia presentation for the spring semester on April 17. Hosted by President Mitch Daniels, the colloquia provide opportunities to hear faculty experts discuss their research in presentations specifically for non-experts on the subject matter.

The presentation is scheduled for 4-6 p.m. at Westwood, the president’s home. To register or for more information, visit the President’s Colloquia webpage. In honor of Purdue’s sesquicentennial celebration, 150 Years of Giant Leaps, each of the colloquia has featured a presentation from a 150th Anniversary Professor.

April 17 (W)

Erica W. Carlson, professor of physics and astronomy, on “Fractal Views on Quantum Matter”

Inside conventional materials like metals and semiconductors, electrons are evenly distributed — like liquid filling a container. But electrons inside many quantum materials act more like an exotic gumbo: Nanoscale images show that the electrons form complex shapes with interesting textures on scales of multiple lengths.

Carlson will discuss how understanding the formation of these patterns is vital to our understanding of electronic properties and to our eventual technological control of quantum matter. We have defined new paradigms for interpreting and understanding nanoscale electronic textures observed at the surface of these materials by employing theoretical tools from fractal mathematics and disordered statistical mechanics. This new conceptual framework has enabled the discovery of universal, fractal electronic textures across several types of quantum matter.

For more information, contact Robin French at 765-494-9708 or rdfrench@purdue.edu.