The U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) has recently honored 83 outstanding scientists with their prestigious 2021 Early Career Research Program awards. Among these distinguished recipients are four brilliant MIT faculty members: Riccardo Comin from the Department of Physics; Netta Engelhardt of the Department of Physics and Center for Theoretical Physics; Philip Harris from the Department of Physics and Laboratory for Nuclear Science; and Mingda Li of the Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering.
Annually, the DoE recognizes and funds exceptional researchers during their crucial early career years, when many scientists conduct their most formative work, thereby strengthening the nation's scientific workforce.
Tomorrow's quantum technologies—including more powerful computing systems, enhanced navigation technologies, and ultra-precise imaging and magnetic sensing devices—depend on understanding the complex properties of quantum materials. These materials exhibit unique physical characteristics that can lead to remarkable phenomena such as superconductivity. The ability to detect and visualize these materials at the nanoscale will enable scientists to unlock and harness their extraordinary properties.
Riccardo Comin, the Class of 1947 Career Development Assistant Professor of Physics, directs the Comin Photon Scattering Lab at MIT. His team utilizes high-energy electromagnetic waves, or X-rays, to observe how new collective states emerge at the nanoscale in quantum materials. This presents a significant challenge, as traditional lenses used in cameras and human eyes cannot function with X-rays as they do with visible light. Conventional microscopy techniques prove inadequate for visualizing these complex quantum phenomena.
To overcome this technical limitation, Comin's team has developed an innovative "lensless" X-ray microscopy approach to capture these electronic textures.
"These new imaging techniques are truly fascinating and fundamentally challenge our conventional approaches to X-ray microscopy," Comin explains. "We now rely on sophisticated algorithms that can computationally perform the image reconstruction task typically handled by a physical lens."
The support from the DoE Early Career Research program will be crucial for the team's continued development and application of these novel techniques to study the nanoscale organization of promising quantum materials. Beyond quantum materials research, these lensless X-ray imaging methods offer a powerful new toolkit for characterizing catalysts, batteries, data storage devices, soft matter, and biological systems.
Few phenomena in contemporary physics remain as enigmatic as the black hole interior. Black holes appear to destroy objects that fall into them, along with information about what those objects once were. Yet according to fundamental principles of quantum mechanics, understanding a system's current state should provide complete knowledge of its past and future.
General relativity and quantum mechanics represent two extensively tested theories that clash when applied to black holes. They fundamentally disagree on whether information from beyond the event horizon can escape and be decoded by an outside observer. This conflict results in what scientists term the "black hole information paradox." In recent years, researchers have discovered numerous connections between gravity and quantum information.
Netta Engelhardt, the Biedenharn Career Development Assistant Professor of physics and member of the Center for Theoretical Physics, specializes in quantum gravity and the black hole information paradox.
"With recent breakthroughs in our understanding of the black hole information paradox, the connection between gravity, quantum computational complexity, and black holes holds unprecedented potential to illuminate some of the most foundational questions about quantum gravity, beginning with 'What truly occurs inside a black hole?'" Engelhardt notes.
With the DoE award support, her project aims to advance toward resolving the black hole information paradox by leveraging novel tools and insights emerging at the intersection of these two fundamental theories.
Particle accelerators enable scientists to explore the fundamental particles that constitute matter.
Spanning nearly 17 miles in circumference, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at the European Center for Nuclear Research stands as the world's largest and most powerful particle accelerator, generating invaluable data for researchers worldwide.
Scientists have traditionally utilized LHC data to investigate novel particle interactions at the highest energies. However, over the next two decades, they anticipate shifting their focus toward precision measurements targeting physics processes with small interaction strengths and extensive background rates.
As a result of these more detailed observations, physicists expect to uncover additional rare and hidden processes within the Standard Model (SM) of particle physics, and potentially beyond the SM, as more data accumulates.
Philip Harris, assistant professor of physics and researcher in the Laboratory for Nuclear Science, is developing a physics program to measure these smaller, more elusive processes. Specifically, with DoE funding support, his research aims to implement a groundbreaking measurement technique he created to identify light resonances that decay into quarks—the fundamental particles that combine to form subatomic particles.
"When combined with advanced artificial intelligence algorithms, this innovative technique can unlock a wealth of unique measurements and discoveries," Harris states. "The fully developed state-of-the-art system will enable new measurements of the Higgs boson, novel searches for dark matter, and analyses of numerous previously unexplored scientific phenomena."
Topological materials represent a class of quantum materials whose electronic properties possess robust protection against external disturbances. This resilience enables numerous promising applications, including next-generation electronics without energy loss and error-tolerant quantum computers.
However, directly testing materials for their topological properties presents significant challenges. Instead, scientists typically employ methods that measure manifestations of topology. One such approach is neutron scattering, or neutron spectroscopy, a technique scientists use to evaluate material properties.
Neutron scattering offers particular advantages for evaluating topological quantum materials, but researchers need more information to understand precisely how massive amounts of data gathered during neutron spectroscopy correlate with topology.
The DoE Early Career Research Program Award will support Mingda Li, the Norman C. Rasmussen Assistant Professor of Nuclear Science and Engineering, in his machine-learning approach to analyzing high-dimensional neutron scattering spectra in quantum materials.
"This innovative approach will enhance existing neutron scattering probes by measuring previously inaccessible properties," Li explains. "By doing so, it will facilitate the discovery of hidden material states that may have electronics applications and identify topological solutions that could revolutionize computer memory technology."
