Bryce Gadway

Assistant Professor

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Bryce Gadway

Primary Research Area

  • AMO / Quantum Physics
333 Loomis Laboratory
phone: (217) 244-9284
fax: (217) 244-7559

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Biography

Professor Gadway is an experimentalist in atomic, molecular, and optical (AMO) physics. He received his B.A. in astronomy-physics from Colgate University in 2007, graduating summa cum laude. He went on to receive his PhD in physics from Stony Brook University in 2012, working in the group of Dominik Schneble. His thesis research focused on the properties of disordered and low-dimensional atomic quantum gases. From 2012-2014, Professor Gadway was a National Research Council postdoctoral research fellow, working in the group of Deborah Jin and Jun Ye at JILA, in Boulder, Colorado. His postdoctoral research was on strongly correlated systems of ultracold polar molecules. He joined the faculty at the University of Illinois in the fall of 2014.

Honors

  • AFOSR Young Investigator Research Program award recipient (2018)
  • Postdoctoral fellowship, National Research Council (NRC) (2012-2014)
  • President's Award to Distinguished Doctoral Students, Stony Brook University (2013)
  • Leroy Apker Award, American Physical Society (2007)

Semesters Ranked Excellent Teacher by Students

SemesterCourseOutstanding
Spring 2018PHYS 214

Selected Articles in Journals

Articles in Conference Proceedings

Related news

  • Research
  • Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics
  • Condensed Matter Theory
Disorder induces topological Anderson insulator

A team of experimental physicists at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have made the first observation of a specific type of TI that’s induced by disorder. Professor Bryce Gadway and his graduate students Eric Meier and Alex An used atomic quantum simulation, an experimental technique employing finely tuned lasers and ultracold atoms about a billion times colder than room temperature, to mimic the physical properties of 1D electronic wires having precisely tunable disorder. The system starts with trivial topology just outside the regime of a topological insulator; adding disorder nudges the system into the nontrivial topological phase.

  • Research
  • Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics
  • Condensed Matter Experiment
Quantum simulation reveals mobility edge in a low-dimensional disordered landscape

Now scientists at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign using an innovative quantum simulation technique have made one of the first observations of a mobility edge in a low-dimensional system. Physics professor Bryce Gadway and graduate student Fangzhao Alex An were able to combine a disordered virtual material—in this case a pair of coupled 1D chains—with artificial magnetic fields to explore this phenomenon.

  • Accolades
  • Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics
Gadway selected for U.S. Air Force Young Investigator Research Program

Assistant Professor Bryce Gadway of the Department of Physics at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign has been selected for the 2017 U.S. Air Force Young Investigator Research Program. Gadway is among 43 early-career scientists and engineers nationwide to receive this three-year award of $450,000. U.S. Air Force Young Investigators are selected based on demonstrated exceptional ability and promise for conducting basic research in scientific and engineering areas identified as strategic to the US Air Force mission.

  • Research
  • AMO/Quantum Physics
  • Condensed Matter Physics
Quantum simulation technique yields topological soliton state in Su-Schrieffer-Heeger model

Topological insulators, an exciting, relatively new class of materials, are capable of carrying electricity along the edge of the surface, while the bulk of the material acts as an electrical insulator. Practical applications for these materials are still mostly a matter of theory, as scientists probe their microscopic properties to better understand the fundamental physics that govern their peculiar behavior.

Using atomic quantum-simulation, an experimental technique involving finely tuned lasers and ultracold atoms about a billion times colder than room temperature, to replicate the properties of a topological insulator, a team of researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has directly observed for the first time the protected boundary state (the topological soliton state) of the topological insulator trans-polyacetylene. The transport properties of this organic polymer are typical of topological insulators and of the Su-Schrieffer-Heeger (SSH) model.

Physics graduate students Eric Meier and Fangzhao Alex An, working with Professor Bryce Gadway, developed a new experimental method, an engineered approach that allows the team to probe quantum transport phenomena.

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