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Spring 2007 News

Professor Huong Nguyen is a recipient of 2006-2007 NASA Research Enhancement Award for Marshall University Science Faculty. She was also one of three professors from Marshall University who were awarded a WV-EPSCoR 2007 Mini-Grant for Researchers. She also is a recipient of the MU-Advance Mini-Grant. Professor Nguyen gave an invited talk entitled: “ Wannier-Frenkel Hybrid Exciton in Different Semiconductor /organic Heterostructures Containing Quantum Dots”, at the Focus Program on Quantum Effect on Nanosystems, APCTP, Pohang, South Korea in November 2006. In June 2006, Professor Nguyen gave a talk entitled: “Electric Field Effect on Hybrid Exciton in a Quantum Dot Coated by an Organic Shell”, at the International Symposium on Structure-Property Relationships in Solid State Materials, Bordeaux, France. She also presented a paper at the III Joint European Magnetic Symposium JEMS' 06, held in San Sebastien, Spain, June 2006, entitled: “Theory of Luminescent Emission in a Nanocrystal Doped by Magnetic Impurities with An Extra Electron”.

At the March 2007 Meeting of the American Phyiscal Society in Denver, Colorado, undergraduate physics major Mr. Justin Angus presented a paper entitled: “Magnetic Field Effect on Hybrid Exciton in a Quantum Dot”. Justin's work was performed under the supervision of Prof. Huong Nguyen.

Thomas E Wilson, Professor of Physics and Physical Science, received an award from the National Science Foundation (ECC-0622060) for $245,896 on September 1, 2006 (along with an REU supplement on March 20, 2007) for the study of the resonant generation of coherent acoustic phonons in silicon doping superlattices by pulsed terahertz laser radiation.

Professor Wilson had two papers published in peer-reviewed journals: (1) "The fabrication and characterization of granular aluminium/palladium bilayer superconducting microbolometers" in Measurement Science and Technology (formerly Journal of Physics E: Instruments) and, (2) "Accessibility of Home Blood Pressure Monitors for Blind and Visually Impaired People" in Journal of Diabetes Science and Technology (DST) Issue 2, March 2007. His DST contributions included measurements of the modulation transfer function and the low spatial-frequency contrast, of small visual displays, as part of an ongoing collaboration with the American Foundation for the Blind TECH. Co-authors were Mark M. Uslan, Darren M. Burton, Steven Taylor, and Bruce S. Chertow.

Professor Wilson has also had a paper describing his microbolometer work accepted for a 20-minute oral presentation at PHONONS2007 - The 12th International Conference on Phonon Scattering in Condensed Matter, to be held July 15-20, 2007 in Paris, France. http://www.isen.fr/phonons2007/.

Fall 2005 News

 Distinguished physicist Dr. Carlos Stroud visits Marshall University (made possible by a grant from the Division of Laser Science of the American Physical Society). See: (1) Poster advertising Dr. Stroud's public lecture on quantum weirdness and teleportation of quantum information (2) Dr. Stroud's slideshow. (3) Dr. Stroud's and Open House itineraries.

Concurrent with Dr. Stroud's visit, the Physics Department and SPS students also hosted the 2005 Year of Physics MU Open House as was described in this Huntington Herald-Dispatch article. This video clip shows Dr. Nico Orsini describing that Open House along with a brief portion of Dr. Stroud's public lecture, including a humorous introduction in which Dr. Stroud arrived, via a "contaminated teleportation device", with Spock ears!