When systems are out of thermal equilibrium, unexpected effects
appears. One is that we expect angular momentum near the edge,
but not in the bulk. The project starts with a Hall system,
i.e., free electrons in a magnetic field, and study its edge
effect. When this is done, we look into other models, such
as the Haldane model. Finally, we see if a driven current can
lead to angular momentum near the edge of a graphene.
The student is expected to have a good foundation in quantum mechanics,
statistical mechanics, solid state physics, and computer skills,
such as MATLAB or python. This is theoretical/computational project.
The emissivity is defined as the ratio of thermal radiation to the blackbody
value according to the Stefan-Boltzmann law of T to the 4-th power of
temperature. Graphene has a well-known 2 percents for emissivity. This
project aims first to reproduce this value and then going on for multi-layer
graphenes, and study the layer number dependence of emissivity. When the
layers approach infinity, we expect the result of graphite. In addition
to the concrete calculations, we also develop theory based on the Boltzmann
transport for coupled electron-photon system.
The student is expected to have a good background in solid state physics.
The capacitor serves as a model system for the simplest possible quantum
system for heat transfer mediated by the Coulomb interaction. In this project,
we study a capacitor with three layers, i.e., the problem of three parallel
plates, each connected independently to a battery. Each of the
plate is treated as a quantum dot of one degree electron. By controlled the
temperature and chemical potential of each one, as well as the two
distances between the plates, we explore possible interesting
new physics.
The student should have a solid fundation is quantum mechanics, and some
numerical computation skills, such as MATLAB or Python.
For more information, contact Prof. Wang Jian-Sheng, phywjs@nus.edu.sg.