January 22, 2004
Penn State Lecture: "Geometry-Driven Interfacial Phenomena in Semiconductor-Metal Hybrid Structures."Lecturer: Stuart A. Solin
Location: University Park - 117 Osmond Laboratory
Time: 4:00pm (starting)Lannin Memorial Lecture Scheduled for 22 January
Stuart A. Solin, the Charles M. Hohenberg Professor of Experimental
Physics and director of the Center for Materials Innovation at
Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, will present the
Jeffrey S. Lannin Memorial Lecture in Physics on Thursday, 22 January
2004, at 4:00 p.m. in 117 Osmond Laboratory on the Penn State
University Park campus. The free public lecture is titled
"Geometry-Driven Interfacial Phenomena in Semiconductor-Metal Hybrid
Structures."Solin's lecture will introduce the physics of narrow-gap
semiconductors, which are used in a variety of electronic devices
such as optical, long-wavelength, and magnetic sensors. He will
discuss the Extraordinary Magnetoresistance (EMR) effect in
large-scale and nano-scale structures and will demonstrate that this
effect is one of a broad class of phenomena that result from the
interplay of geometry with hybrid-material interfaces. He also will
report on Extraordinary Piezoconductance (EPC), a new example of such
phenomena.Throughout his career, Solin's research has focused on fundamental
physical phenomena in ordered and disordered solids. In 2002 the
American Physical Society selected as two of the most important
research achievements in physics his demonstration of a nanoscopic
EMR magnetic-field sensor and his discovery of room-temperature EMR
as high as 3,000,000 percent in macroscopic narrow-gap
semiconductor-metal-hybrid structures. Since that discovery, and the
quantitative explanation of this new phenomenon based on geometric
effects, much effort has been expended to miniaturize EMR devices,
such as ultra-high-density-magnetic recording and storage devices.
This research has revealed surprising new aspects of mesoscopic
physics-the understanding of how physical systems work when
macroscopic objects are miniaturized.Formerly a Sloan Fellow, a Fellow of the Japanese Society for the
Promotion of Science, and a recipient of the Lady Davis Israeli
Fellowship, Solin is also a Fellow of the American Physical Society
and a Fellow and Chartered Physicist of the Institute of Physics in
the United Kingdom. He received his bachelor's degree in physics
from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1963, and his
master's and doctoral degrees in physics from Purdue University in
1965 and 1969, respectively. After receiving his doctoral degree he
joined the faculty of the University of Chicago, where he became
co-director of the National Science Foundation Materials Research
Laboratory. He moved to Michigan State University in 1979, where he
organized and directed the Center for Fundamental Materials Research.
In 1989 he joined the NEC Research Institute as a Fellow, the highest
scientific rank in the company. While there he also held an
appointment as adjunct professor of physics at Imperial College in
the United Kingdom, a position that he still holds. He joined on the
faculty at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, in 2002.The Lannin Memorial Lectures are supported by donations to the Eberly
College of Science Jeffrey S. Lannin Memorial Fund in memory of
Lannin, who was a professor of physics at Penn State from 1976 until
his death in 1997.
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