Look Who's at the Lab: Chun Ning "Jeanie" Lau
In Look Who's at the Lab, we profile some of the hundreds of scientists who visit our lab every year.
Physicist Chun Ning "Jeanie" Lau (far left), an associate professor at the University of California, Riverside, with several of her students. From left to right: Yongjin Lee, (Jeanie Lau), Jhao-Wun Huang, Wenzhong Bao, Lei Jing and Jairo Velasco Jr. All but Huang are Mag Lab users.
Job Title: : Associate professor of physics, University of California, Riverside
Mag Lab user since: 2008
Number of visits to lab: ~ 10
Dates of most recent experiment:
9/19/11-9/23/11
Your home is in:Riverside, CA
Distance traveled (from home to lab):
~ 2,220 miles
Research interests: graphene, nanotubes, nanoscale systems, low temperature physics
Web site:http://physics.ucr.edu/~lau/
E-mail: lau@physics.ucr.edu
Mag Lab user Chun Ning "Jeanie" Lau giving a lecture on graphene, one of her main research interests.
Title: Symmetry-broken insulating states and fractional quantum Hall (FQHE) effect in Bilayer and Trilayer Graphene
Other participants: Wenzhong Bao, Jairo Velasco Jr., Nikolai Kalugin (New Mexico Tech), Dmitry Smirnov (Magnet Lab)
Synopsis of latest experiment: We study symmetry-broken states in double-gated bilayer and trilayer graphene in zero and finite magnetic field as well as integer and fractional quantum Hall states in these devices.
Facility:DC Field Facility, Magnet Lab, Tallahassee
Equipment: He3 refrigerator and cryostat
Techniques: Low temperature transport measurements
Q: What's the best thing about working at the lab?
A: “Is working with the world’s highest DC magnetic field (really cool!); having the best technical and infrastructure support that I’ve ever experienced (bar none); working with research staff who are always tremendously warm, helpful and make me feel at home.”
"Graphene is … stronger than steel yet softer than silk … transparent like plastic but conducts heat and electricity better than copper … a Nobel-winning material ... produced by every school kid every day."
Q: What you miss most about home when you're here:
A: “Good Chinese food!” Her favorite dishes include scallion pancake and yan du xian (a stew of pork, ham, bamboo shoots and bean curd). “I like cooking, but I don’t really have time to do it often.”
Q: What's the most unscientific thing about you?
A: Dancing Argentine tango. I learned Argentine tango when I was a graduate student in Boston. I saw a performance and was instantly hooked. It is an incredibly fun, passionate and sexy dance, with lots of improvisation and fancy legwork.”
Q: Scientist and nonscientist, living or dead: Whom would you most like to meet?
A:For nonscientist, she selected the multifaceted artist Leonardo da Vinci (1452 – 1519).
“Leonardo da Vinci was the Renaissance man whose genius shone in so many areas: painting, sculpture, music, engineering, anatomy, mathematics, invention, etc.”
And for scientist, Galileo Galilei (1564 – 1642). To explain why, she chose the words of another well-known scientist, Stephen Hawking, who credits Galileo as “perhaps more than any other single person, … responsible for the birth of modern science.”
Q: What are you reading now?
A: She’s reading “The Accidental Time Machine,” by Joe Haldeman (2008, Ace Books), a science-fiction adventure novel about an MIT researcher who inadvertently creates a time machine while working on a calibrator to measure the relationships between gravity and light.
“I’m an avid sci-fi reader. I love reading and thinking about traveling to a different world, a different time, a different universe or different reality/plane of existence. I like thinking about ‘what if?’ and enjoy the rich imagination of the writers.
“I’d say I’m an information junkie — I always need to have something to read, e.g. books, papers, proposals.”
Q: Complete this sentence: We could make great strides in science, if we could just figure out how to_________.
A: “increase the general public’s interest in, and appreciation of, science, and double or triple the nation’s investment in science funding.”
Q: What advice would you give someone just starting out in your field?
A: “Be passionate and creative, persevere and know what questions are important.”
Q: What keeps you awake at night?
A: “Let’s see: a beautiful experimental result (Can I reproduce it tomorrow? What does it mean?); bad experimental results (Why? What went wrong?); proposal writing (What should I write?); proposal submission (Will it be funded?); proposal rejected (Darn!); manuscript rejected (Darn!).
“Okay, so it seems that the better question is ‘What gives you a good night sleep?’. And the answer is: 1. When we observe and understand new phenomena, and 2. When our proposals and manuscripts are accepted (which is necessary for No. 1).”
Q: What is it about graphene that fascinates you and keeps you studying it?
A: “Graphene is such a beautiful and unique material. It is stronger than steel yet softer than silk; it is transparent like plastic but conducts heat and electricity better than copper; it is the thinnest (single atomic layer) elastic membrane that is also a conductor and in which electrons “lose” their mass; it is a Nobel-winning material but is produced by every school kid every day. There are many fascinating aspects to this material, and over the past few years I’ve had a great time studying it.”
Q: Your favorite quote:
A:"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler." --–Albert Einstein
Q: Parting thoughts on science today:
A: “The best and most fun scientific discoveries are often accidental. So keep an open mind, veer off the predefined path at times, and enjoy the journey!”
Ten selected publications:
1. W. Bao, L. Jing, J. Velasco Jr., Y. Lee, G. Liu, D. Tran, B. Standley, M. Aykol, S.B. Cronin, D. Smirnov, M. Koshino, E. McCann, M. Bockrath, C. N. Lau, “Stacking-dependent Band Gap and Quantum Transport in Trilayer Graphene,” Nature Physics, accepted (2011).
2. W. Bao, Z. Zhao, H. Zhang, G. Liu, P. Kratz, L. Jing, J. Velasco Jr., D. Smirnov, C. N. Lau, “Magnetoconductance Oscillations in High-Mobility Suspended Bilayer and Trilayer Graphene,” Phys. Rev. Lett., 105, 246601 (2010).
3. L. Ling, J. Velasco Jr., P. Kratz, G. Liu, W. Bao, Marc Bockrath, C.N. Lau, “Quantum Transport and Field Induced Insulating States in Bilayer Graphene pnp Junctions,” Nano Letters, 10 4000 (2010).
4. W. Bao, F. Miao, Z. Chen, H. Zhang, W. Jang, C. Dames, C.N. Lau, “Controlled Ripple Texturing of Suspended Graphene and Ultrathin Graphite Membranes,” Nature Nanotechnology, 4, 562 (2009).
5. F. Miao, S. Wijeratne, U. Coskun, Y. Zhang, W. Bao, C.N. Lau, “Phase Coherent Charge Transport in Graphene Quantum Billiards,” Science, 317, 1530 (2007).
6. (Invited Review article) M.S. Fuhrer, C.N. Lau, A. H. MacDonald, “Graphene: Materially Better Carbon,” Material Research Society Bulletin, 35, 289 (2010).
7. J. Velasco Jr., Z. Zhao, H. Zhang, F. Wang, Z. Wang, P. Kratz, L. Jing, W. Bao, J. Shi, C.N. Lau, “Suspension and Measurement of Graphene and Bi2Se3 Think Crystals,” Nanotechnology, 22, 285305 (2011).
8. H. Vandeparre, M. Pineirua, F. Brau, B. Roman, J. Bico, C. Gay, W. Bao, C.N. Lau, P. M. Reis, P. Damman, “Wrinkling Hierarchy in Constrained Thin Sheets from Suspended Graphene to Curtains,” Phys. Rev. Lett. 106, 224301 (2011).
9. B. Standley, W. Bao, H. Zhang, J. Bruck, C.N. Lau, M.W. Bockrath, “Graphene Atomic Switches,” Nano Lett., 8, 3345 (2008).
10. A. Bezryadin, C. N. Lau, M. Tinkham, “Quantum Suppression of Superconductivity in Ultrathin Nanowires,” Nature, 404, 397 (2000).
Date posted: July 2011
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