Abbamonte selected Moore Investigator

Professor Peter Abbamonte is one of nineteen outstanding scientists nationwide to be designated a Moore Experimental Investigator in Quantum Materials. Recipients of this five-year grant are selected based on the potential for their research to transform our understanding of quantum materials, making it possible to ask new fundamental questions about the organization and behavior of complex quantum matter.

Abbamonte will use the funds to support an ambitious ongoing project that will address one of the biggest outstanding problems in the field of quantum materials: high-resolution observation of charged boson particles that can emerge from the collective interaction of electrons and ions in these materials when they are cooled to low temperatures.

Quantum materials are substances in which collective behavior of electrons and ions leads to many emergent properties, such as high-temperature superconductivity and exotic forms of magnetism. Discovery-driven research in this field could eventually lead to revolutionary applications in electronics, computing, energy technology, and medical devices.

Exotic emergent particles (or excitations) in these systems are usually either fermions or bosons, and while there are excellent probes of the fermions, the current leading techniques for probing bosons are inadequate: they are either insensitive to bosonic charge excitations or they are lacking in resolution.

Abbamonte’s research group is developing an electron spectrometer that will circumvent these shortcomings. This device could reveal for the first time the fundamental bosonic excitations that mediate interactions—such as the conjectured pairing boson in high temperature superconductors.

Once operational, the team intends to use the device to shed new light on significant unknowns in particle interactions in unconventional superconductors, doped graphene, Goldstone modes near charge order transitions in cuprates, spin ladders, and Ruddlesdon-Popper phase manganites, and to study elementary excitations in anomalous Hall systems.

The Moore Experimental Investigator in Quantum Materials Awards are part of a $90 million Emergent Phenomena in Quantum Systems (EPiQS) Initiative—one of the largest privately-funded initiatives in this field—that provides support for highly talented scientists in three areas: experiment, materials synthesis, and theory. The EPiQS Initiative aims to facilitate scientific breakthroughs by giving some of the field’s most creative scientists the freedom to take risk and the flexibility for agile change of research direction, and providing them with an environment that encourages collaboration with other leading researchers.

 

The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation believes in bold ideas that create enduring impact in the areas of science, environmental conservation, and patient care. Intel co-founder Gordon and his wife Betty established the foundation to create positive change around the world and at home in the San Francisco Bay Area. In science, the foundation looks for opportunities to transform—or even create—entire fields by investing in early-stage research, emerging fields, and top research scientists. Its environmental conservation efforts promote sustainability, protect critical ecological systems, and align conservation needs with human development. In patient care, the foundation focuses on eliminating preventable harms and unnecessary healthcare costs through meaningful engagement of patients and their families in a supportive, redesigned healthcare system. For more information, please visit www.Moore.org or follow @MooreScientific.