Department Colloquia

Spring 2022 Schedule

All talks will be held remotely, via Zoom. Registration links will be displayed below, alongside each scheduled talk. Check here for updates to the schedule as the semester progresses.

Tuesday, February 22, 12:30 p.m.

Title: Mathematica and Wolfram Technology - Classroom and Research

Speaker: Andrew Dorsett (Wolfram Research, Inc.)

Registration link: https://wolfr.am/BrooklynCollege

Abstract: This webinar will show live calculations in Mathematica 13 and Wolfram|Alpha. Specific topics include:

Beginning with Mathematica in 3 minutes with no knowledge of syntax
Connecting to Wolfram|Alpha and using your own words to build and create complex calculations
Visualizing data, functions, and more in 2D and 3D
Connecting to the secure Wolfram Cloud and Deploying models and notebooks online
Building mouse-driven examples with just a small amount of language.
Computing in specialized areas, including machine learning, image processing, statistical analysis, parallel computing, and more.

Tuesday, March 29, 12:30 p.m.

Title: A Carbon Neutral Economy by 2050: Can we do it? What will it look like? What will it cost?

Speaker: Mike Tamor, Adjunct Professor, School for the Future of Innovation in Society, Arizona State University and Henry Ford Technical Fellow (retired)

Registration link: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZwrd-Goqz0rG9cL2bC5MdFSUD6h8C6np-oQ

To be followed by a Q&A discussion of careers in industrial physics.

Speaker Biography: Mike Tamor is an adjunct professor at Arizona State University in Tempe. From 1982 to 2017 he worked as a researcher at the Ford Motor Company in Dearborn, Michigan. In 2013 he was promoted to Henry Ford Technical Fellow, the top executive-scientist position at Ford.

Abstract: Moving citizens, business and government to action on climate change requires the ability to convince them that the threat to their well-being is very real and then to show them that the solution is not worse than the problem. Accumulating news of drought, fire, flood and famine may accomplish the first, but without the second, denial will transform to acquiescence—“Climate change may be real but it’s too expensive to do anything about it, so we’ll just have to learn to live with it.” Several techno-economic studies show that the U.S. could end fossil carbon emissions by 2050 without giving up our lifestyle at a cost of less than 1% of gross domestic product (GDP). However, their complexity renders them difficult to explain and unconvincing to many. We present a simplified ‘spreadsheet’ model to show how we can achieve carbon neutrality at an affordable cost using known technology. Although subject to assumptions for long-term economic development and technological innovation, the resulting need for at least three times the electricity we use today and over 150 billion gallons per year of hydrocarbon fuel and feedstock (about one half of today’s consumption) is so striking—and simple to explain—as to provide convincing policy guidance.

Tuesday, April 26, 12:30 p.m.

Title: Control of excitons and quantum emitters in two-dimensional materials

Speaker: Gabriele Grosso (ASRC/The Graduate Center, CUNY)

Registration link: https://tinyurl.com/gabrielegrosso

Abstract: Photonics based on two-dimensional (2D) materials has made incredible progress in the last years and currently sets the state of the art for a number of applications in optoelectronics and optics. Recently, 2D materials have also begun to impact the field of semiconductor quantum optics through the demonstration of stable quantum emitters in semiconductor transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) and hexagonal boron nitride (hBN). Despite the great promise of this system, a few challenges still need to be tackled before promoting this system for real quantum applications.

In this colloquium, I will focus on the control of exciton dynamics in TMDs and of the quantum emission from atom-like defects in 2D wide-bandgap materials, such as hBN. In the first part of the talk, I will present our efforts to route exciton diffusion in 1D and 0D confining potentials. Moreover, I will discuss our recent results on the visualization of dark states in TMDs. Dark excitonic states in TMDs represent the lowest excitonic states of the system and can deeply affect transport, dynamics and coherence of bright excitons, hampering optoelectronic properties and device performance. Therefore, it is crucial to create conditions in which these excitonic states can be visualized and controlled. Our experiments show that the emission and spectral properties of dark excitons are accessible and strongly depend on the local strain environment.

In the second part of the talk, I will focus on the quantum emission from atom-like defects in 2D hBN with particular attention to the broad inhomogeneous spectral distribution. Our experiments were able to link this multicolor emission to variations of the electromagnetic environment with the development of a method to actively tune the emission energy by externally modifying strain. Recently, we developed a material process that allows us to generate different kinds of quantum emitters by incorporating foreign atoms, i.e. C and O, in the atomic structures resulting in active defects responsible for single photon emission.

Tuesday, May 10, 12:30 p.m.

Title: Design and Characterization of Electrolyte Materials for Energy Storage and Conversion Applications

Speaker: Sophia Suarez (Brooklyn College and The Graduate Center, CUNY)

Registration link: https://tinyurl.com/sophiasuarez

Abstract: The need for more efficient electrolytes for non-lithium ion-based batteries and high temperature proton conducting membrane fuel cells (HT-PCMFC) has necessitated the development of novel processes and materials. Our work has been focused on modifying, designing and characterizing the ion transport in these materials using a combination of multi-Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) and Electrochemical Impedance (EIS) Spectroscopy. The use of these techniques allows us to access the local and bulk ion transport mechanisms and their governing interactions. This information is useful not only for enhancing our understanding but by also providing potential tuning parameters.

We will present results on aluminum ion speciation and interactions in deep eutectic solvents (DES) comprised of aluminum chloride and various amides for potential aluminum ion battery applications, the effect of processing on the proton transport in modified phosphoric acid (PA) doped polybenzimidazole (PBI) for HT-PCMFC applications, and electrospun polyethylene oxide doped with ionic liquids. In addition to NMR and EIS results, density and viscosity measurements will also be discussed.