Career: From Strongly Correlated Insulator to Metal: Transport and Magnetic Properties of Carrier Doped Insulators.

[No authors listed]

UIID-NSF: 516

Abstract

w:\awards\awards96\num.doc 9702690 DiTusa This experimental CAREER grant, supported by the Division of Materials Research and the Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) will advance the state of knowledge of the properties of lightly doped semiconductors and insulators, with emphasis on magnetic oxides such as those which have been transformed into high temperature superconductors by suitable doping. The proposed work will explore the magnetic and transport properties of such carrier-doped strongly-correlated insulators. The low temperature properties of doped insulators will be measured to determine if the ground states are ordinary band insulators in the insulating state, and Fermi liquids in the metallic state. Thin films of the materials will be produced to explore the potential of making electronic devices based on the small band gaps and the doping-controllable magnetic ground states of these materials. The research will be integrated into an education plan to help enhance student learning and to train future scientists, including minority scientists. The PI's education plan involves a physics laboratory course open to students from his own institution and also to students from the nearby HBCU Southern University. %%% This CAREER program project, supported by the Division of Materials Research and the Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR), involves fundamental experimental research on the classes of semiconductors and insulators which have in the past decade been found to yield high temperature superconductivity when the materials are suitably doped with additional chemical elements which have the effect of producing electrical conductivity. The materials to be studied here are magnetic in the undoped state, but lose this property as they gain electrical conductivity . One aspect of the work will be to assess more generally the opportunities to make electronic devices based on thin films of such materials. The long term results of this project may include improved magnetic sensing devices, such as are used in computer magnetic disk drives. On the educational side the PI plans to enhance student learning and to train future scientists, including those from under- represented minority groups. A joint physics laboratory course will be featured which is open to students of the PI's institution and also to students from the nearby Southern University, which is in the HBCU class (Historically Black College or University). ***

Other Details

• Award Instrument: Continuing grant
• Email: [email protected]
• Organization: Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College
• Other Investigators: Hridesh Rajan
• Primary Investigator: John DiTusa
• Program(s): CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, EXP PROG TO STIM COMP RES
• Start Date: 08/01/1997